Polymarket reportedly secures $300 million from Trump Jr.-linked investment fund

Prediction market platform Polymarket has raised $300 million from investment fund 1789 Capital, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed sources. The investment forms part of a larger funding round totaling approximately $1 billion.

1789 Capital, a fund in which Donald Trump Jr. serves as a partner, had previously invested $200 million in Polymarket. The firm has also backed other controversial tech-adjacent ventures, including Enhanced Games, a competition dubbed the "steroid Olympics" that was founded by veterans of various technology companies. TechCrunch has reached out to Polymarket for comment.

Regulatory scrutiny intensifies

Prediction markets have increasingly come under scrutiny from state regulators, with many state governments moving to establish new rules governing whether and how residents can use such platforms. At least 20 states are currently engaged in litigation against prediction sites over the sports wagers they offer.

At the same time, the federal government has repeatedly worked to shield the prediction industry from state-level regulation. The Trump administration has argued that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) should be the industry's sole regulator, rather than individual states. The CFTC, for its part, has sued at least nine states over their attempts to regulate the sector.

A coalition of 44 state attorneys general recently signed a letter contending that the CFTC lacks the authority to regulate sports-related wagers on prediction platforms. According to a New York Times report, Donald Trump Jr. recently appeared at an event with conservative state attorneys general, where he described the prediction industry as already subject to "robust oversight" and characterized prediction sites as being "overseen by federal officials, not state attorneys general."