Anirban Sen
New York: An unknown trader has raked in a profit of about $US410,000 ($610,000) after betting Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro would be ousted.
The trader’s account on the Polymarket prediction market built up positions in contracts tied to Maduro’s removal on terms that implied long odds before the weekend raid.
Those wagers, which were worth about $US34,000 before Maduro’s capture, surged in value after news of the US military operation against the Venezuelan leader emerged, Polymarket data shows.
The mystery trade is likely to attract scrutiny from US lawmakers who have been pushing for stricter insider trading rules, including a bipartisan effort to potentially ban trading of stocks by lawmakers.
After news of the Maduro trades emerged on Monday (US time), Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres said he planned to introduce a bill this week that would bar elected officials, lawmakers and federal employees from placing bets on prediction market platforms when they could potentially access material non-public information.
London’s Telegraph said it was unclear whether House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson would bring the bill to a vote, or if President Donald Trump would sign it if it passed both houses of Congress.
The anonymous account was created last month, with the trader buying up $US96 worth of contracts on December 27 that would pay off if the US invaded Venezuela by January 31. The trader then made several more similar bets in the following days. More than half of the total bet was placed the evening before the attack, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Prediction markets such as Polymarket offer tradeable yes-or-no contracts that allow users to bet on a wide range of real-world events, ranging from outcomes across sports, entertainment, politics and the economy.
When a contract priced at a few cents pays out at $US1, traders who have access to non-public information tied to such contracts can rake in massive profits within hours or days.
In September, Polymarket secured approval from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission to relaunch its operations in the country, following its $US112 million acquisition of QCEX, a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange and clearinghouse. The CFTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it was looking into trades related to Maduro’s capture.
Polymarket has previously faced scrutiny on potential insider trading on the platform. While Americans at present do not have access to the main betting platform, many traders use VPNs to get around the ban.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
