SCOTLAND’S independence referendum paved the way for hedge funds to make millions short selling the pound on Brexit night, a stunning new investigation has revealed.

A seven month probe by Bloomberg has revealed that some of the world’s biggest funds paid polling firms huge sums for data about how voters were swithering over leaving the EU.

When polls closed on Brexit referendum day two years ago, it initially looked as if Remain had won, sending the pound soaring to a high of $1.50.

Within hours, as the result became clear, the market fell to $1.32.

Hedge funds made a killing short-selling the pound cheaply to greedy investors who thought it was heading towards a seven year high.

Instead those buyers had paid over the odds for a currency crashing to the floor.

One of the reasons the markets believed Remain had won was because that was what Ukip’s Nigel Farage was telling press.

At 9.40pm he told Sky News: “It’s been an extraordinary referendum campaign, turnout looks to be exceptionally high and [it] looks like Remain will edge it. Ukip and I are going nowhere and the party will only continue to grow stronger in the future.”

And then 70 minutes later he said: “I don’t know, but I think Remain will edge it, yes. The massive increase in voter registration will be the reason for that.”

Asked if he was just experiencing election-night jitters, the UKIP leader replied: “It is a calm and rational feeling. If I am wrong, I would be thrilled. But it is what we have seen out and about, and what I know from some of my friends in the financial markets who have done some big polling.”

According to Bloomberg, Farage, a former commodities broker who also went to work for a London currency trading company after he moved into politics, had, at this point, information suggesting the Leave side had actually won.

A spokesperson for Farage said he “had no financial interest in currency movements on the night of Brexit”.

Rokos, which worked with ICM and Professor John Curtice, ended up making more than $100 million, or 3% of its entire value, in a single day,

Brevan Howard, who bought exit-polling data from ComRes, made $160m on June 24 alone.

The idea of using referendum results to short the markets started in Scotland.

When YouGov published a poll showing Yes pulling ahead two weeks ahead of referendum day September 2014, the pound and stock values fell.

According to Bloomberg’s sources at the firm, hedge fund executives were desperate to know what future polls would say, and were willing to pay top dollar for even just a 30-minute heads-up.

Survation organized and sold last-minute tracking polls and a syndicated exit poll for the Scottish referendum to some of the world’s biggest hedge funds, according to three knowledgeable sources.

Clients included Brevan Howard Asset Management, then managing about $37 billion, Tudor Investment Corp and the Japanese firm Nomura Holdings Inc.

Pollsters at Survation and ICM streamed results throughout the day of the vote, allowing their hedge fund clients to place bets while voters were still casting ballots.

Yesterday, former Daily Record editor, Murray Foote tweeted: “On September 17, 2014, the Record had an eve of IndyRef poll that proved to be pretty much bang on. That evening we fielded many many calls from financial businesses and funds desperate for advance knowledge of the poll. They all got told the same thing: GTF”

Scots polling blogger, James Kelly was less convinced. He said: “There may be a grain of truth in the Bloomberg article about the Brexit polls and hedge funds, but there’s a hell of a lot of drivel in it as well.

“The public polls showed a narrow result, any private exit polls must have shown a narrow result.

“Nobody knew the outcome in advance.”

Polling firms are not supposed to “publish” to the public results of exit polls while voting is still taking place.