Following last month’s pardon of crypto executive Changpeng Zhao, bettors are eagerly trying to guess whom Donald Trump will pardon next.
The online prediction site Polymarket’s users believe there is a nine percent chance that Trump pardons his former advisers Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, as of Tuesday.
Other top picks included outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams at eight percent, and, each with seven percent, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, music mogul P. Diddy, and crypto executive Roger Ver.
While bettors believed these individuals had higher chances of getting a pardon, more money was spent betting on those with lower percentages, including crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried, who generated more than $916,000 in trading volume, and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who caused more than $463,000 in trading.
Not everyone on the list is currently facing the kind of federal charges or convictions that could be wiped with a presidential pardon, and some have gotten past reprieves from Trump.
Bannon was pardoned in 2021 for his involvement in swindling donors in a private attempt to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In October, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the contempt of Congress conviction he got for refusing to testify in the January 6 investigation.
In 2020, Trump granted clemency to Stone, who was about to face prison time after being found guilty of lying to Congress and intimidating witnesses.
Federal officials dropped a corruption case against Adams after the official spent months making overtures to the White House on its immigration agenda. The Trump administration has reportedly mulled a federal position for Adams, though he has denied reports he’s in conversations with the White House.
Several top prosecutors resigned in protest of the decision to drop the case.
Ver, a cryptocurrency evangelist nicknamed “Bitcoin Jesus,” reached a $49.9 million deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department last month in a tax evasion case.
Trump has attracted criticism for his pardon of Zhao, the former CEO of Binance, a company that has been involved in lucrative partnerships with the Trump family’s crypto endeavors.
“I don’t know who he is,” Trump said over the weekend when pressed about the pardon on 60 Minutes.
As The Independent has reported, online betting markets have come to play an important role as real-time tools to track political sentiment.
Some observers argue that such betting drives civic engagement and incorporates new information faster than traditional polling, while others fear such markets risk driving corruption.
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