Opinion trading, or just Illegal betting? An insight on Probo

Probo did a revenue of ₹459 Cr at a PAT of ₹92 Cr in FY24. And now it’s getting raided by the ED.

Here’s something even ED hasn't talked about as yet, but perhaps could.

Probo claims to be an "Opinion trading" platform. That sounds elegant and even intellectual. A financial layer for forecasting public sentiment. Nice! If capital markets discover the price of assets, then opinion markets should, in theory, discover the probability of events. But for that to work, they need to be bottom-up. Emergent. Prices must respond to belief. Odds must reflect the collective consciousness of the crowd.

That’s how it's supposed to work. That’s how Polymarket works.

Polymarket is a prediction market built on Ethereum. On Polymarket, if someone places a bet, the odds shift. Prices respond to community behavior, which in turn respon to real events. That’s how markets are supposed to behave.

But Probo?

On the surface, it looks like opinion trading. Odds on events, community-style matching and all. But dig a little deeper, and it's all a sham. Because the odds don’t seem to emerge from the crowd. They seem imported. Lifted straight off global betting exchanges like Betfair.

I checked this, repeatedly. At different hours. On different events. And the odds on Probo weren’t just “inspired” by Betfair. They were identical. Which implies Probo isn't really aggregating the wisdom of the public. It's just scraping the existing exchanges. Meaning, there's no opinion discovery. No market. No innovation. Just mirroring.

And here’s the kicker: Most bets on Probo aren’t even matched by other users. They’re matched by names like “Probo112234”, “UserProbo893”, etc. Bots? Probably! This isn't community consensus. It’s a company-run Satta Matka, matching your bets internally, and taking a commission while pretending to be a "democratic platform".

And the scale!

At a standard 5-7% platform rake, Probo’s ₹459 Cr in revenue implies a betting volume of ₹6,500-₹10,000 Cr. This is a HUGE! And it's funded! With over $28 Million from folks like Peak XV. Amazing!

Now how do I know this?

We built Virtual Voter as a clean, transparent alternative in the world of Indian opinion polling. Open. Auditable. Non-manipulable. VV predicted Lok Sabha elections better than all pollsters. That was nice! But monetizing it was hard. Especially with our limited resources. So we considered a pivot. We studied Polymarket and thought of blending VV's voting with real money opinion trading. Could be something good!

I talked to folks who run real betting shops, i.e. the "Mahadev" types. Fascinating! I said, “What if we built a platform where people bet against each other, and odds get discovered live?”. They laughed and said, “Won’t work”.

"But why?"

"Because odds have to track the market or the bookies will wipe you off”.

“What market?”

They opened Betfair.

“But Probo runs on community!"

They opened Probo.

“Same odds, Nishant bhai”. And that was it.

Mahadev, Radhey, Probo, ED.. Ram Ram Ram!

What is Probo? Now you know.

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