Polymarket hires ex-Goldman Sachs partner as prediction markets land on House watchlist

Polymarket has confirmed the appointment of Lisa Mantil as head of institutional growth. Mantil was a partner at Goldman Sachs and was there for nearly 3 decades.

The move is seen as a wager on Wall Street money, and it happens as regulators, state AGs, and lawmakers in DC place more attention on prediction markets.

From the ETF accelerator to an “exploding asset class”

Mantil exited Goldman as a partner and global head of the ETF accelerator, Goldman’s in-company program that assisted clients in shipping new investment products to market.

CEO and Founder Shayne Coplan, in a statement, said that Mantil’s network in the world of Wall Street makes her the best choice for the job. Mantil also chimed in, framing her appointment as an opportunity to “help shape an exploding asset class at an inflection point in its development.”

Mantil’s appointment is one of many senior hires Polymarket has made in recent times. The company hired Warren Jenson, formerly of Amazon, Delta Air Lines, and Nielsen, as its first CFO.

In May, Polymarket launched its US-regulated exchange and is currently valued at approximately $21 billion, after raising $1 billion from the likes of 1789 Capital and Intercontinental Exchange.

Courting the block-trade crowd

Mantil has been asked to bring large traders to the platform, a feat that has previously eluded prediction markets. Institutional adoption is in its infancy, partially due to operators and state regulators squabbling over the right to govern sports-related event contracts.

The tooling is being brought up to speed. Kalshi, a competitor of Polymarket, carried out the first block trade in the prediction market space. The trade occurred in April and was a privately negotiated deal designed to shift large positions without affecting prices.

Polymarket’s international platforms followed suit almost a month after.

Investigators already asking questions

Prediction markets have already become a hot topic in DC, with lawmakers asking questions amid whispers of insider trading. The House Oversight Committee and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are both scrutinizing the activities of prediction markets.

The CFTC has no less than three investigations into Polymarket’s trades this year: contracts linked to former President Joseph Biden’s pardons, “Iran event contracts”, and Google-themed contracts in July. Each order was approved by Chairman Michael Selig.

Polymarket has not faced any direct accusations, and the company says it has its markets under control. The company referred dozens of flagged accounts to the Department of Justice, and Coplan has pointed to proprietary surveillance software designed by a former FBI official.

Even so, the Anti-Corruption Data Collective identified 152 accounts that made about $8 million on war markets with a 97% win rate. One case has already produced charges: POGO said Special Forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke was accused of using classified information to earn more than $400,000 on a Polymarket trade.

States and Congress want a say

The battles are growing beyond the CFTC. New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul have filed a lawsuit against Polymarket, referring to it as a gambling operation without a license.

Polymarket went on to countersue in federal court, making the argument that authority resides with the CFTC and that federal law protects its contracts from state gambling rules.

The New York State House of Assembly has two bills before it, one of which is the ORACLE Act, sponsored by State Senator Joseph Addabbo Jr. The Act seeks to prevent users below the age of 21 from accessing prediction markets. It also seeks to ban certain markets completely.

In DC, the Project On Government Oversight is asking the Senate Armed Services Committee to rewrite Section 1801 of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. POGO wants all Department of Defense trades banned on the platforms, not just trades that go beyond the $250 mark and rely on material nonpublic information.