A previously unknown Polymarket user made more than $400,000 by wagering that Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro would be removed from power by the end of January, reported by NBC News.
The account, which initially used the handle “Burdensome-Mix,” placed 13 wagers totaling $33,934.34 between Dec. 27 and Jan. 3, all tied to predictions that the United States would soon intervene in Venezuela or that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31, according to Polymarket. NBC News reported the user’s largest and final bets — more than $14,000 — were placed late Friday night, hours before the operation became public.
U.S. officials told NBC News that President Donald Trump authorized the mission before Christmas, but kept the day of action in flux. The timing was not widely known inside the Pentagon until late Friday, the officials said. In the early hours of Saturday, U.S. forces detained Maduro and his wife and transported them to the United States to face narco-terrorism charges, NBC News reported.
The unusually well-timed trading has renewed concerns that prediction markets could be used to profit from sensitive or nonpublic information. NBC News reported that blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said the account appeared to fund and cash out through mainstream U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges without using common obfuscation tools.
Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment, NBC News reported. The trader’s identity and location remain unknown, leaving open whether the windfall was extraordinary luck or an information edge unavailable to the public.
