Goldman Sachs's 27-year partner switched to Polymarket, pointing to institutions predicting the market

According to Woofun AI, it is predicted that the market circuit will usher in major personnel changes, and Lisa Mantil officially left Goldman Sachs (GS.US), where she has served for nearly 27 years, to join Polymarket. This cross-border movement of core executives marks the beginning of traditional Wall Street capital's deep involvement in the decentralized prediction market in an attempt to seize institutional business opportunities in an area where regulations are vague.

Mantil was gradually promoted to partner during his time at Goldman Sachs, a very powerful title on Wall Street. On Tuesday, she announced her departure and joining Polymarket, where her new role focuses on leading top institutional clients into the company's business. Polymarket CEO Shane Copland revealed that the two met through the introduction of Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon.

Notably, this was only Mantil's second job in his career. During her tenure at Goldman Sachs, she led ETF accelerator programs to help clients launch equity-like exchange-traded funds. Today, she will use this experience to develop price forecasting and risk hedging products for banks, fund managers, and businesses for elections, interest rates, and geopolitical events. Coplan emphasized that Mantil's experience and connections in the institutional field are world-class, and this will be a key variable for Polymarket to expand the B-side market.

Currently, the forecasting market is mainly driven by retail investors, mostly focusing on sports betting, while large investors prefer to avoid the bulk trading model of price fluctuations through private large transactions. Competitor Kalshi was the first to implement such a deal in April, and a month later, the Polymarket international platform launched a similar feature. According to recent news, Polymarket is exploring the provision of bulk trading services on its US trading platform.

According to data compiled by Woofun AI, as of mid-September, Kalshi accounted for 83% of the market's weekly trading volume, and Polymarket was under tremendous pressure to catch up. A broker revealed to CNBC that Polymarket is close to being capable of large transactions on the US platform, with the aim of attracting early institutional customers seeking high-value trading channels.

Although Mantil sees the forecast market as a rapidly growing emerging asset class, the legal risks remain serious. New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Polymarket US on September 24, accusing it of engaging in illegal gambling activities in New York State. CNBC notes that some agencies choose to wait and see until state and federal regulators don't clarify the jurisdiction of sporting event contracts. Faced with regulatory uncertainty, Copland is still actively seeking customers and inviting institutions that want to make large transactions to contact them directly.