• Anonymous digital bet earns massive profits before official announcement of the operation
• Sudden spike in Maduro exit odds before US president’s post on social media

An anonymous gambler made nearly half a million dollars from a bet on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, just before the operation was officially announced, raising questions about whether someone profited from inside information.

Bets on Polymarket, a cryptocurrency-powered platform, on Maduro leaving power before the end of January, surged in the hours before US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the Venezuelan leader had been seized.

Reports indicate that a single account, which joined the platform last month and placed four bets all related to Venezuela, won over $436,000 from a $32,537 wager.

The identity of the bettor remains unknown, and the account had an encrypted digital identifier consisting of letters and numbers.

Platform data shows that the odds of Maduro leaving were estimated at 6.5% on Friday afternoon, 2 January, before rising to 11% shortly before midnight and surging further in the early hours of 3 January, indicating a sudden shift in positions just before Trump posted about Maduro’s custody on social media.

A small number of other platform users also earned tens of thousands of dollars from wagers on Maduro’s capture.

Some members of Congress have begun monitoring the situation. Representative Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from New York, introduced a bill on Monday aimed at preventing government employees from betting on prediction markets if they possess “material nonpublic information” related to a wager.

Prediction markets in the United States have seen a sharp rise in popularity in recent years, allowing users to bet on everything from sports to politics, with leading companies attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in wagers on the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.

Trading based on inside information is illegal in the stock market, but regulations are less strict in prediction markets.