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A bettor earned a substantial sum from wagers on the downfall of Nicolás Maduro immediately preceding it was publicly declared, raising questions about whether someone profited from non-public details of the US operation.

Sudden Shift in Forecasts

Predictions made on the forecasting site, a crypto-powered platform, that Nicolás Maduro would be removed from office by the month's conclusion increased in the time leading up to former President Trump declared on Saturday that the Venezuelan leader had been seized.

One account, which registered on the site last month and placed four wagers, all on the Venezuelan situation, earned over $nearly half a million from a starting bet of $32.5K.

The identity is unknown. The anonymous account had only a blockchain identifier for identification.

Probability Spikes Before Announcement

Platform data shows that participants put the odds of the president's removal at just 6.5% in the afternoon of Friday, January 2nd.

Yet the odds had increased to over 10% by late Friday night and spiked dramatically in the morning of January 3rd, suggesting a sudden change in positions just before the social media post was made.

"This specific wager has all the signs of a transaction based on confidential knowledge," commented a financial reform advocate.

A small number of other platform users also made tens of thousands of dollars from bets on the same outcome.

Regulatory Scrutiny Emerges

Elected officials are beginning to pay attention.

Proposed legislation presented on recently seeks to ban government employees from participating on forecasting platforms if they have "insider details" related to a wager.

The Prediction Market Landscape

Prediction markets have become increasingly popular in the past few years, with traders able to predict everything from elections to current affairs.

Prediction markets were examined under the Biden administration. However it has experienced less resistance during the Trump presidency.

Insider trading is a crime in the traditional financial markets, but there are more ambiguous rules in the forecasting space.

A company executive for another major platform said their site "has clear rules against trading on insider information of any form."