Gambler Loses $3.6M Betting on Mike Tyson to Beat Jake Paul
A gambler who backed Mike Tyson to win his Friday night bout against Jake Paul has lost an eye-watering $3.6 million, Polymarket has revealed.
After much fanfare, boxing legend Tyson, 58, faced off against YouTuber-turned-fighter Paul, 27, at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The event was streamed live by Netflix , which reported the broadcast peaked at 65 million concurrent streams .
Social media personality Paul won by unanimous decision over Tyson following the bout's full eight rounds. It was the first professional fight by former world heavyweight champ Tyson in nearly two decades.
Paul controlled the pace throughout, with Tyson struggling to find his rhythm as he faced the younger, quicker opponent. The judges' scorecards reflected the one-sided nature of the contest, with one scoring it 80-72 and the other two at 79-73.
While the result didn't prove particularly shocking, given that Paul was the odds-on favorite to walk away the victor, one gambler has been left with a sizable hole in their pocket after backing Tyson for the win.
Offshore crypto-based betting platform Polymarket made the announcement on X, formerly Twitter , where a screenshot of the against-the-odds wager was shared.
The image showed that a gambler with the username "zxgngl" had bet in favor of Tyson winning, causing them to subsequently lose a grand total of $3,635,218.89. The loss left the account with a relatively paltry $5,538.69.
"This guy just lost $3.6 million betting on a 58-year-old Mike Tyson," read the caption on Polymarket's X post, which as of press time has garnered more than 300,000 views.
Tyson threw just 97 punches and landed 18 of them throughout the fight, while Paul threw 278 and landed 78.
The fight had been moved from its originally planned July date after Tyson experienced an "ulcer flare-up" on a flight to Los Angeles in May.
On Saturday, Tyson wrote on X: "This is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I'm grateful for last night. No regrets to get in ring one last time.
"I almost died in June. Had eight blood transfusions. Lost half my blood and 25 pounds in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.
"To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish eight rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you."
While the betting loss is an undeniably large hit, it would appear that the zxgngl account, which was created in October by a user whose identity is not publicly known, raked in a considerable amount of cash recently.
According to The Wall Street Journal , the same account pumped $18 million into betting on Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris in this month's presidential election. The wager reportedly secured the gambler a $29 million payout. Per the Journal, the account spent more than $5 million betting on Trump in just one day.
Polymarket is a decentralized "prediction market" platform , which allows its users to wager on the results of elections and other world events.
Its users buy and sell shares in potential outcomes, the prices and payouts of which range from 1 cent to one dollar, and the platform requires its users to connect to the platform using a crypto wallet and to pay using the USDC stablecoin, a cryptocurrency pegged to the real-world value of the U.S. dollar.
Unlike sports betting, Polymarket operates on a peer-to-peer blockchain trading model, meaning that individuals are purchasing bets from each other rather than one centralized bookie.
While the prediction market has proved popular, it has also faced scrutiny. Polymarket was fined $1.4 million by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 2022 for operating an unregistered platform for derivatives trading.
Since that decision, which halted its American operations, Polymarket's status in the U.S. has remained in legal limbo. Election betting was approved by the CFTC for other prediction markets, such as Kalshi, in late October, but Polymarket remains technically barred for U.S. users as a result of an agreement it made with the regulator in the 2022 case.
However, many in online crypto communities have pointed to workarounds, such as the use of VPNs, to make wagers. Polymarket does not require users to disclose their identity or location when creating an account, only a crypto wallet, which makes bypassing these geographic restrictions relatively simple.
