Last week, an account on Polymarket invested more than US$30,000 (around R$162,000) in the downfall of Nicolás Maduro by January 31, 2026. When US forces captured the Venezuelan leader and his wife at their residence on Saturday, the user profited US$436,759.61 (around R$2.36 million), which represents a gain of more than US$400 thousand (around R$ 2.16 million).
The account was created less than a week before Maduro’s capture and placed bets only related to Maduro’s departure and the possibility of the US going to war with Venezuela, including on the day of the capture.
The timing of the account’s creation, as well as the impressive gains, raised suspicions of insider trading, as prediction markets considered Maduro’s capture statistically unlikely. Polymarket listed the chances of its capture by January 31st at just 5.5%. Rival platform Kalshi estimated the probability of Maduro leaving office before February at 7%.
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“Inside trading is not only permitted in prediction markets; it is encouraged,” said entrepreneur and investor Joe Pompliano in an X post on Saturday, in response to Polymarket user’s large investment in Maduro’s departure.
Given the intense confidentiality surrounding the operation, with key members of Congress not even informed in advance, anyone with prior knowledge would likely be at the highest levels of government or in a key operational role in the military.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have been the target of growing suspicions about the use of privileged information. In December, several Polymarket accounts bet that OpenAI would launch a new model by the middle of the month. The technology company actually launched GPT-5.2 on December 11, and the four accounts together made $13,000 on their investments. Weeks earlier, a Polymarket trader made $1 million in 24 hours betting on Google’s Year in Search ranking.
Despite there being no evidence that the user had private information to support investments, Meta engineer Jeong Haeju accused the account of using privileged information.
“At this point, it’s obvious: he’s a Google insider taking advantage of Polymarket to make a quick buck,” Haeju wrote on X. “It’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen on the platform.”
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To clarify, insider trading is prohibited in prediction markets. “No person should act or direct another to act on the basis of non-public order information, regardless of how it was obtained,” Polymarket regulations state. However, the enforcement of this ban has been questionable.
Prediction markets are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which oversees all derivatives markets such as options and futures. Unlike gambling, which is regulated to protect users, derivatives markets do not require the same consumer protections.
The Trump administration has historically been lax in enforcing insider trading rules. An NPR analysis in 2020 showed that under President Donald Trump in 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street’s regulator, filed 32 insider trading cases, the lowest number since 1996.
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Prediction markets have also had victories against regulators. In 2024, Kalshi challenged the CFTC’s decision to ban betting on the results of the US Congressional elections and won, as the elections were not considered gambling or illegal activities. The platform opened betting for these elections within an hour of the federal judge’s favorable decision.
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