Foreign Investors Lament Huge Losses in an Instant as Oh Sehoon Overtakes Jeong Wonoh in Seoul Mayoral Election Bets

Polymarket Offers Prediction Betting on Korean Local Elections

Extreme Volatility as Oh Sehoon Overtakes in Tight Race

On the morning of June 4, as the votes for the June 3 Seoul mayoral election were being counted, Oh Sehoon of the People Power Party overtook Jeong Wonoh of the Democratic Party of Korea by a narrow margin. As a result, thousands of foreign investors instantly lost tens of billions of won. This all unfolded on the U.S.-based prediction market platform, Polymarket.

Polymarket, which offers prediction services for the outcomes of various events around the world, also provided betting opportunities on the winners of this year’s local elections. The Seoul mayoral race, in particular, attracted record-breaking trading volume due to the close competition. Some critics have raised concerns that Polymarket is effectively permitting illegal gambling.

Foreign Investors Betting on Korean Election Outcomes via Polymarket

Prediction trend results related to the Polymarket Seoul mayoral election. Polymarket capture

As of June 4, trading volume for the Seoul mayoral election on Polymarket reached 50.39 million dollars (approximately 7.7 billion won). Around 7 a.m. that day, the odds of victory for both Oh and Jeong, who were in a tight race on Polymarket, saw a sudden shift. When Oh barely surpassed Jeong in vote percentage, his probability of winning on the platform surged abruptly from 45% to as high as 887%.

Since the amount bet is determined by the winning probability, the asset values of Polymarket investors also experienced significant fluctuations. User comments flooded in, such as “Hurry up and update the results,” “This is a scam,” and “I made a lot thanks to this,” creating a chaotic scene.

The prediction market platform Polymarket offers betting on election outcomes in many countries, including the United States, Europe, Korea, and Japan. The Seoul mayoral election drew intense global attention starting the day before the vote count, with some accounts placing bets of up to $170,000 (about 260 million won) at once. Heated discussions also took place on Reddit, the world’s largest English-language online community, over the election results.

Ongoing Controversy Over Illegal Gambling

Controversy is growing over whether Polymarket is a form of gambling. Polymarket capture

While interest in Polymarket continues to grow among internet users, some argue that it is essentially no different from illegal gambling. There is also ongoing controversy over potential manipulation of prediction prices using inside information. In April, a U.S. Army Special Forces sergeant was indicted for allegedly using classified information about the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to place bets on related predictions on Polymarket, profiting 400,000 dollars (about 600 million won).

In Indonesia, when a bet was opened regarding the early resignation of the president, local authorities classified Polymarket as a form of online gambling and decided to completely block access for their citizens.

On May 22, the Korea Communications Standards Commission reportedly began reviewing whether Polymarket violates domestic gambling laws. Under current law, placing wagers on any site other than Sports Toto (which is operated by the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation and has a limit of 100,000 won) is illegal in Korea.

Nevertheless, public interest in prediction markets remains strong. This year, the combined cumulative transaction volume on major prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi is estimated to have nearly reached 39 billion dollars (about 58 trillion won).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.