Online sleuths have tried to uncover who placed a winning bet on the Venezuelan leader's arrest to no avail. Still, prediction market watchers say the bet appears suspicious.

A mysterious online bettor made more than $400,000 on Polymarket, a website that lets people wager cryptocurrency on the odds of real-world events occurring, by correctly predicting the U.S. would invade Venezuela and topple President Nicolás Maduro.

Someone saw it coming. On December 27, a new account appeared on Polymarket, the cryptocurrency-based prediction market. Over the next few days, it placed a ... Read More

Polymarket has not paid out wagers that predicted the U.S. would invade Venezuela—drawing angry reactions from some bettors—as the online betting platform suggested that the raid to capture Maduro did not qualify as an invasion and the resolution of the bet would require the U.S. establishing direct control of the country’s territory.

Polymarket, the world’s largest online prediction market, ruled that last weekend’s US military operation did not count as an “invasion.”

On Friday, something that very much looks like a brand new account on Polymarket plowed $30,000 into bets on the toppling of Venezuelan p. By the very next morning, when Maduro was suddenly no longer able to act as president of Venezuela anymore due to having been dragged out of his bed by the U.

A Polymarket account that earned about $400,000 from a controversial and well-timed bet on the capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is no longer accessible on the platform. The Polymarket page for account “0x31a56e,

Traders placed wagers on whether the US will invade Cuba in 2026 – giving it a 10% chance – as well as when a possible strike might take place.