🔗 Share this article A Prediction Market Trader Profited $Nearly Half a Million from Bets Predicting Venezuela's Political Shift. A smartphone screen displays a prediction market application logo. An individual profited close to $500,000 by predicting the removal of the Venezuelan leader shortly prior to it was made public, leading to inquiries about whether someone profited from non-public details of American actions. Market Movement in Forecasts Bets placed on the crypto-platform, an online prediction market, that Nicolás Maduro would be removed from office by the month's conclusion rose in the period preceding President Donald Trump announced on the weekend that the president had been taken into custody. One account, which joined the platform last month and made four bets, all on political events in Venezuela, earned over $436K from a initial bet of $32.5K. Who placed the bet is a mystery. The anonymous account had only a cryptographic address for identification. Probability Spikes Before Announcement Trading information shows that users estimated the likelihood of Maduro's exit at just 6.5% in the afternoon of Friday, January 2nd. But the odds had jumped to eleven percent by late Friday night and spiked dramatically in the early hours of January 3rd, pointing to a sudden change in betting activity just before the social media post was made. "This particular bet has all the signs of a trade based on confidential knowledge," stated Dennis Kelleher. Several of other platform users also made tens of thousands of dollars from bets on the same outcome. Regulatory Scrutiny Emerges Elected officials are starting to take note. A new rule presented on the start of the week seeks to ban federal workers from making trades on forecasting platforms if they have "confidential government knowledge" related to a wager. Industry Context Event-driven betting sites have become increasingly popular in the past few years, with participants able to predict everything from sports outcomes to current affairs. Prediction markets faced scrutiny under the last presidential term. Yet it has found a more favorable environment during the present political climate. Trading on insider information is illegal in the stock market, but there are less oversight in the prediction market industry. An official representative for another major platform said their site "explicitly prohibits insider trading of any form."