🔮 $286 to $1M from ‘Reversing Stupidity’

How “Semi” made it big by fading folk wisdom, and what he’s betting on now

“Semi" deposited $286 on Polymarket in June 2024. Since then, this reclusive trader, who uses a default Discord profile pic and has just 215 followers on X, has run his Polymarket PnL up to over $1 million by – as he puts it – betting against stupidity. His strategy is simple: look for overvalued bets and take the other side.

When the bros think they can predict the next Pope (an event that has happened just 7 times in the last 100 years), he fades them. When MAGA traders, riding high from the 2024 victory, bet that Trump will fulfill each and every one of his campaign promises within 100 days, he takes the other side. And when pundits are hyperventilating about World War III, he bets on a return to the status quo. The Oracle spoke with Semi to discuss his approach to finding dumb money, why he lost big on Trump's cabinet picks, and what he’s betting on now.

This interview has been edited for length. All answers are his own.

How did you get into prediction markets?

I got in around 2017 after Trump won. I was really, really shocked by it. Based on everything I read, it seemed impossible. I found prediction markets pretty quickly and thought, "This is an elegant way to represent probability, what people are actually willing to bet."

But for years I assumed these markets were filled with really smart people, perfectly efficient, nothing I could contribute. It wasn't until June, 2024 that I thought, "Maybe I should actually try this." Turns out I'm quite good at it. I deposited about $100 and very quickly doubled it. So I thought, "This is dumb, I shouldn't do this with so little money." I deposited $200 more. Never needed to deposit again. I just scaled up by winning.

Walk me through your strategy.

In most areas, if you just reverse stupidity, you're not necessarily smart. But in betting, if you're reversing stupidity, you kind of are becoming smart. If you can identify how people are being stupid, you can make money even if you aren't a genius.

Take the Pope market. I didn't read one article. I couldn't name one cardinal or tell you what countries they were from. But I saw that the top three candidates added up to 75% while there are 150 cardinals who could become pope. I just really don't believe that crypto degens can predict with such high accuracy what a bunch of 80-year-old Catholic priests will do.

So I bought "No" on all the top candidates without trying to predict the actual winner at all. This ended up being quite a good trade.

You were surprised by Trump in 2016. How did you play this last election?

I lost betting on Kamala to win, which in retrospect was a mistake. But I was heavier in the post-election trades. I had a simple heuristic: Trump just won, lots of people got paid out betting on him, so Polymarket will be biased toward Trump optimism. You would've gotten blown out on cabinet picks like I did, but there were many profitable fades.

The tax-on-tips market [that Trump would end taxes on tips within his first 100 days] was beautiful. If you did any research whatsoever, you'd know Congress was in recess for most of April and complicated tax bills take 6-8 months. The odds of this happening in the first 100 days were tiny. But MAGA money pushed it way up.

Trump inauguration TV ratings was another one. People were sick of politics, and both candidates were unpopular. But Trump fans thought, "Trump is amazing so everyone will watch." These markets got bet up way past any rationality.

But you lost big on cabinet confirmations? What happened there?

Right after the election, I had a great trade betting against Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader. If you were reading Twitter, which is massively biased towards Trump, Rick Scott the super conservative MAGA guy was a lock. But if you go down the list of senators and who their allies were, getting a majority to vote for Rick Scott is almost impossible. Senators have a very long history of not responding to "I'm going to email you 10,000 times" from the base.

But it didn’t matter because Elon was super supportive, all the conservative influencers were behind him. He traded above 50% for a while. I like to imagine showing these markets to a reporter who covers Congress and imagine their reaction.

So I continued to bet on Republican pushback against Trump, that there would be a more serious effort from senate Republicans to vet Trump’s cabinet nominations. I thought McConnell would whip 3-4 senators against the really controversial picks. I was wrong mainly because McConnell's illness was really bad, and he didn't have strength for this fight.

“Tulsi No” was my biggest position. She's allegedly been involved with Hezbollah, Assad, and sanctioned Russian officials. I thought there's no way she gets through the Intelligence Committee filled with hawkish McCain-style Republicans. My fair odds were maybe 15% and the market totally crushed me.

You were up big betting Iran wouldn't close the Strait of Hormuz. What did you see there?

When Israel and Iran are at war, people instantly think the world is upside down and anything can happen. In reality, if you understand how the oil market works, the odds of Iran closing the strait are really, really small. It would be suicidal.

The status quo is US and Israel versus Iran. If Iran closed the strait, it would be literally the entire world versus Iran. They get 25% of their GDP from oil exports through that strait. It's not rocket science.

Are you starting to think about 2028?

I'm a big believer that media has fundamentally changed. In the 20th century, you had four TV channels all talking about positive news. Being an incumbent was advantageous. Today, people use social media and get very negative stuff constantly, all day every day.

If you're president, you get a massive avalanche of blame for anything. Even made-up problems. Trump will get blamed for everything, get very little credit for anything good. It's this insane social media attention economy promoting infinite negativity.

For this reason, I think Democrats have 65-70% chance to win. Vance is probably 60-70% to be the Republican nominee, and he'll get all the blame for everything bad in the last four years.

Who do you like for the Democratic primary?

AOC is in a strong spot as the clear progressive candidate. She'll probably be in the final three because she'll have a solid 20% that's pro-AOC while everyone else fights for the rest.

But after two terms of Trump, Dems will want to win so badly. The electability argument will be persuasive against AOC. After Harris and Clinton lost and Biden won, people will be very reactive against a female candidate. I think that negatively impacts her primary chances.

How do you feel about the NYC mayoral race?

I think Cuomo, Silwa, and Adams are all very stubborn, and any of them getting out for the greater good looks unlikely at this point. I think most realistically for Zohran to lose it needs to be a 1-on-1, which just doesn't seem to be on the horizon.

You also do a lot of sports trades. Do you apply this same approach?

In sports, I look for common folk wisdom that's obviously dumb if you think analytically. Like "this team can't win, they're too young." I bet a lot on Oklahoma City Thunder [2026 market] because by every number, they were amazing. But they're one of the youngest teams, so the folk wisdom said they can't win, don't have experience.

Twitter hated the Thunder: "They're TikTokers, they're zoomers, they're not clutch." If you just looked at how they played, this team was absolutely amazing. They ended up winning the championship.

This is alpha I'm perfectly happy to give away because nobody will listen. The folk wisdom is too seductive. People want to believe "this coach can't win the big game" or "this person always chokes."

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