2025 Nobel Prize Hit By Suspected Cyber Crime According To Norwegian Officials

Norwegian officials are looking into a potential cyber crime after they noticed a massive surge in betting activity on this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, several hours before the official announcement was made. The convenient timing, coupled with the sheer amount of money wagered, means the Norwegian Nobel Institute is treating it as a possible case of espionage.

Before the big announcement, the Polymarket prediction platform had Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado's odds of winning around just 3.75%. Those odds skyrocketed to nearly 73% as Thursday night gave way to the Friday morning of the announcement. This was with no prior media speculation ranking her among the frontrunners, too. By the following Monday morning, Norwegian Nobel Institute director and Nobel Committee secretary Kristian Berg Harpviken told press that the institute had launched a formal probe into the matter.

One particular account wagered about $70,000 on Machado's victory just hours before the announcement, netting about $30,000 in profit as a result. The trader's account was newly opened and had no history of betting on other events before the big win. Two other accounts focused almost exclusively on Machado made a combined profit of about $90,000 as well. Betting culture in sports has already faced criticism lately, especially with the rise of things like official betting apps for pro sports leagues, but this possible crime takes things to a whole new level.

While the official investigation continues, it's not hard to see why Norwegian officials suspect the leak has something to do with these Polymarket winners. The aforementioned app, a blockchain-based prediction platform recently valued at about $8 billion, allows betters to buy and sell shares based on "yes" or "no" outcomes (like Kalshi here in the United States). 

These shares are tied to real-world events such as elections, celebrity news; or in this case, Nobel Prize winners such as Machado, or the quantum mechanics visionaries who took home the prize in physics last year. Polymarket isn't available in the U.S. after some government scrutiny back in 2022, but it's still operating globally.

The strange case has definitely raised some questions about the security of the Nobel Prize, which has always been one of the world's most secretive awards. The five-member Nobel Committee decides the Peace Prize confidentially, which means there's only a handful of individuals that are ever aware of the winners before they're announced. The fact that Machado wasn't one of the most talked-about prospects only makes a breach look that much more likely.