One Polymarket user just got a quick payday, all because of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement.
At 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday — 1:00:35 p.m. to be exact — Swift and Kelce posted photos of their engagement on Instagram.
“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the caption said.
Less than 22 hours before the viral announcement dropped, a Polymarket user by the name of “romanticpaul” evidently began to feel increasingly confident that Kelce and Swift would get hitched, betting that the couple would get engaged by 2025.
Polymarket is a prediction market platform that allows traders to bet on the outcome of future events such as sports competitions, elections, and pop culture.
Since December 31, 2024, Polymarket users have been able to bet on whether Swift and Kelce would get engaged in 2025. According to publicly available data on the website, romanticpaul first began to buy “Yes” shares on July 31.
Then, at around 3 p.m. ET on Monday, the user went on another buying spree, starting with 199 “Yes” shares at $.30 apiece. For the uninitiated Polymarket user, the payout for any outcome is no more than a dollar. In this case, romanticpaul would profit $.70 for each share if Swift and Kelce got engaged by the end of the year.
In total, the user purchased 1,708 shares that day — most of them priced under $.40 each.
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Romanticpaul didn’t stop there.
At 12:46 p.m. ET on Tuesday, less than 15 minutes before Swift and Kelce hit the post button, Polymarket registered more bets from romanticpaul. In total, the user locked in nearly 1,200 “Yes” shares while the position was under $.50 each. That meant, at the time, the market believed that Kelce’s and Swift’s engagement was still less than a 50/50 outcome.
Romanticpaul’s bet paid off.
The user bought a total of 5,180 “Yes” shares for about $2,046. With a $5,180 payout, that represents a 153% profit of $3,134.
Swift and Kelce instantly became the It Couple since the two began dating in 2023. The influence of the popstar alone helped rake in NFL viewership, along with a 400% boost in Kelce’s jersey last year.
The power couple previously spawned interest from betting markets. Last year, prediction platforms like BetUS and Polymarket took wagers on the chances Kelce would propose to Swift post-Super Bowl. On Polymarket, traders collectively wagered $77,328 on that bet.
That’s the life of a chronic bettor.
