Polymarket bettor made $400,000 with wagers on removal of Maduro

A mysterious online bettor made more than $400,000 on Polymarket, a website that lets people wager cryptocurrency on the odds of real-world events occurring.

A mysterious online bettor made more than $400,000 on Polymarket, a website that lets people wager cryptocurrency on the odds of real-world events occurring, by correctly predicting the U.S. would invade Venezuela and topple President Nicolas Maduro.

The bets, which are viewable on Polymarket’s website, have prompted fresh concern that the rise of Polymarket and other platforms like it can allow insiders privy to confidential or even classified information to easily use their knowledge to profit.

In the early hours of Saturday, the U.S. military conducted a special operation to capture Maduro and his wife and bring them to the U.S. to face narco-terrorism charges.

Polymarket does not facilitate contact among users. The account in question has made only 13 bets, totalling $33,934.34. All of them were placed between Dec. 27 and Jan. 3 and were related to the probability of the U.S. soon invading Venezuela and of Maduro being removed from office. It’s unclear when and where the account was created. Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.

President Trump claimed earlier in December that Maduro’s days were “numbered,” but had generally refrained from publicly offering specifics about an operation to remove Maduro. U.S. officials told NBC News that Trump decided before Christmas to authorize the operation in Venezuela, but kept the actual day in flux. The timing wasn’t widely known at the Pentagon until late Friday night, the officials said. That night, before the news was public, the Polymarket user placed their largest and final bets, wagering more than $14,000.