🔗 Share this article An Prediction Market Trader Made $436,000 on Wagers Predicting Venezuela's Political Shift. A smartphone screen displays a prediction market application logo. An individual profited close to $500,000 on the ouster of Nicolás Maduro just before it was publicly declared, sparking debate about whether someone profited from inside knowledge of the event. Changing Odds in Predictions Bets placed on the crypto-platform, an online prediction market, that the Venezuelan president would be out of power by the close of the month rose in the time leading up to former President Trump announced on January 3rd that the Venezuelan leader had been seized. A single trader, which registered on the site last month and made four bets, all on Venezuela, profited a total of $nearly half a million from a initial bet of over $32,000. The identity is unknown. This unidentified trader had only a blockchain identifier for identification. Probability Spikes Before News Break Platform data shows that traders put the odds of the president's removal at just under 7% in the afternoon of the prior Friday. However these probabilities had climbed to eleven percent by late Friday night and spiked dramatically in the first hours of the next day, pointing to a sharp shift in market sentiment right before the official statement was made. "That trade has all the characteristics of a transaction based on non-public details," stated Dennis Kelleher. A small number of other platform users also earned tens of thousands of dollars from bets on the same outcome. Legal Questions Emerges Politicians are starting to take note. A bill put forward on recently would prevent public officials from making trades on prediction markets if they have "material nonpublic information" related to a wager. Market Background Event-driven betting sites have surged in popularity in the United States, with traders able to wager on everything from sports to political events. This sector faced scrutiny under the Biden administration. Yet it has received a warmer welcome during the present political climate. Insider trading is against the law in the securities markets, but there are more ambiguous rules in the prediction market space. An official representative for another major platform said their site "explicitly prohibits such activities of any form."