Three unnamed Polymarket users made more than $630,000 in less than a day after betting a fraction of the sum that Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro would be forced out of office by the end of the month — a windfall that has stoked suspicions of insider trading.
Social media users could not help but notice that three newly created wallets on the prediction market site managed to score large sums of money by placing bets on Maduro’s arrest just hours before he was taken into custody by US special forces late Friday night.
The most significant wager was placed Friday by someone with the wallet 0x31a5, who put down $34,000 to bet “Yes” on the question “Will Nicolás Maduro be forced out of power by January 31, 2026?”
At the time the bet was placed, the market probability of Maduro’s removal by the end of the month stood at 6% — indicating that most traders considered the outcome farfetched.
In the early morning hours of Saturday, those odds jumped to 12.5% within 35 minutes — suggesting that there was a surge of buying fueled by insider information.
Less than three hours later, President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social account that US forces successfully took Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, into custody in a commando raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas.
By Saturday morning, the initial $34,000 wager produced an eye-popping 1,242% return.
Two other purses invested more modest sums. One wallet named 0xa72D invested $5,800 — producing a handsome return of $75,000, according to the site Kucoin.
A third wallet named SBet365 wagered $25,000 and earned $145,600.
All three accounts aroused suspicions given that they were created just days before the Maduro raid and they were each prefunded with capital specifically for these bets.
In other words, analysts noted that these wallets bet exclusively on events related to Venezuela and Maduro and had no history of other bets.
The accounts were created late last month. According to reports, the US military initially had plans to conduct the raid on Christmas Day, but decided to hold off due to inclement weather in Venezuela.
Maduro and Flores, who were flown to a Brooklyn detention center, are scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court on Monday, where they face charges ranging from narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns.
The Post has sought comment from Polymarket.
