When Taylor Swift announced her engagement on Wednesday, I was pretty happy that I wasn’t going to have to write about it. Alas, here we are.
Because it turns out someone won big (ish) from the starlet getting engaged, specifically, a crypto-gambler known only by the lovestruck handle “romanticpaul.”
The wager was placed via Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market that lets you bet on everything from presidential elections to alien disclosure. And, yes, whether Taylor Swift would say yes to NFL boyfriend Travis Kelce in 2025.
The Taylor Swift engagement market had been open for some time, with nearly $US400,000 wagered on the outcome this year alone. But right before Swift made the announcement with a sickly, flower-laden love parade for her legion of followers and amateur detectives, someone placed a huge bet.
It didn’t take long for a few sharp-eyed observers to notice. On Twitter (I’ll never call it X), one user flagged that a flurry of heavy bets had shifted the odds by over 70% right before the news broke, forcing the market to halt betting entirely.
“It’s hardly consequential,” they said, “but it is kind of wild to know that if you’re besties with a celeb – or even on their PR team – you can still do some potential insider trading using nothing but their personal secrets.”
If it was someone close to the action — a publicist, a stylist, or a friend in the inner circle — they may have pulled off the most romantic case of front-running we’ve seen all year.
No crime committed. Just vibes. And maybe some decently profitable foresight.
According to estimates, the trade cost them around $US3000 and the final amount would have seen them net around $US5000. Here’s the tweet that spotted the bet:
someone knew about the travis/tswift engagement before it was announced and made a bag off it on the polymarket line. market pumped 70% the hour before announcement and then got halted. hardly consequential but just a reminder that insider trading is still very alive just in other forms lol pic.twitter.com/QZps81Azk7
— dom (@Domahhhh) August 27, 2025
