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Trader Makes $400,000 Betting on Venezuelan Leadership Change
A single anonymous trader struck it rich by placing bets that Nicolás Maduro would be ousted from power in Venezuela, netting over $400,000 in just a few hours. This lucrative move on Polymarket, a crypto-based betting platform, has sparked speculations about possible insider knowledge regarding a covert U.S. operation that apprehended the Venezuelan leader.
$400,000 in a Matter of Hours
The trader opened an account last month and began making wagers on December 27, investing $96 in contracts that would pay out if the U.S. invaded Venezuela by January 31, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Over the following week, they gradually increased their bets, honing in on contracts that forecasted Maduro’s removal by the same deadline.
Polymarket data indicates that the final wager was placed at 9:58 PM ET on a Friday, just hours prior to President Donald Trump’s initiation of the mission. At that time, the contracts were valued at only 8 cents each, suggesting merely an 8% chance of success. Once the news of the U.S. operation broke, the contract prices skyrocketed, leaving the trader with an impressive profit of nearly $410,000 from around $34,000 in total wagers. Notably, over half of the bets were placed the night before the operation commenced, using a default blockchain address as the account’s identifier.
Was it an Inside Job?
Tre Upshaw, founder of Polysights, commented, “It’s more likely than not that this was an insider. That’s a lot of money to put in at that price, without a lot of news.” The operation was reportedly shrouded in secrecy, known only to a select group of advisers within the Trump administration. It involved multi-branch military coordination, with 150 warplanes deployed from 20 different locations.
In response to this incident, Democratic leader Ritchie Torres plans to propose legislation that would prohibit government officials from betting on prediction markets when privy to insider information. Although Polymarket officially restricts American users, many have found ways to bypass the rules using virtual private networks.
Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan stated that self-regulation is crucial on the platform, noting that users actively identify suspicious bets in real time. Coplan affirmed, “The moment there is a suspected insider, it’s pointed out on X, and it’s visible on Polymarket immediately. So it’s not like it’s done in darkness.”
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