Shayne Coplan, founder and chief executive of Polymarket, speaks during the New York Times annual DealBook summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 04, 2024 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Two federal investigations of the online prediction betting site Polymarket have been closed with no charges filed against the cryptocurrency-based marketplace, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC on Tuesday.
“Polymarket has received declination notices from the U.S. Justice Department and Commodity Futures Trading Commission related to investigations into the company,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to discuss non-public actions.
The company declined to comment.
Polymarket received the formal notices earlier this month, informing the company that the probes, one civil and one criminal, had been completed, and no further action would be taken. Bloomberg News first reported the notices.
The anticlimactic conclusion of the probes is the latest example of the Trump administration dropping actions initiated under the Biden administration against crypto companies or online betting markets.
In May, the CFTC moved to drop its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling that allowed the prediction market KalshiEx to accept bets on U.S. elections.
The Justice Department and CFTC had been investigating whether Polymarket was accepting bets from people in the United States, despite promises made by the company in early 2022 not to do so.
The assurances were made after Polymarrket was fined $1.4 million by the CFTC, which concluded that the marketplace had failed to register as a facility for even-based binary options, Bloomberg reported.
The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office, which conducted the criminal investigation of Polymarket, declined to comment on Tuesday. CNBC has requested comment from the CFTC.
A Polymarket advertisement in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Monday, July 22, 2024.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The closure of the probes comes nearly nine months after FBI agents seized a cellphone and other electronic devices of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan during a raid of his apartment in New York City. Coplan was not criminally charged.
Polymarket last year handled more than $3.6 billion in bets placed on the outcome of the presidential election, an NBC analysis found.
Coplan blamed the administration of then-President Joe Biden for the raid and investigation.
“It’s discouraging that the current administration would seek a last-ditch effort to go after companies they deem to be associated with political opponents,” Coplan said in a post on the social media site X in November.
“Polymarket has provided value to 10’s of millions of people this election cycle, while causing harm to nobody.”
Coplan in March thanked President Donald Trump for inviting him to a crypto summit at the White House that month.
“This admin’s commitment to collaboration with American innovators is revitalizing the American dream,” Coplan wrote in a post X.
“The future is bright,” he added.
