How one trader quickly turned a $30,000 wager on Venezuela action into $400,000

By Jules Rimmer

Not many saw Maduro's ousting and rendition to the U.S. being so sudden. But one trading account did.

Maduro's journey from dictator to inmate at the Brooklyn detention center was a rapid one.

One trader quickly amassed a profit of over $400,000, through a handful of well-timed bets exclusively on the possibility the U.S. would carry out a military operation in Venezuela.

Starting on Dec. 27, a trader made wagers on Polymarket, the popular, decentralized online prediction marketplace, on Venezuelan-related contracts. By early Saturday morning the same account had placed a series of further bets on the same outcome, staking just over $30,000 in total.

Not many hours later on Saturday, these bets were closed out for a profit of $409,882, around fourteen times the original stake money.

Each of those trades were made on contracts that traded at pennies on the dollar, with the largest of the trades, that Nicolas Maduro would be out of office in a month's time, at just 7 cents on the dollar.

The identity of the oracular, or exceedingly well-informed, account holder is not known.

Such unusual betting practices have garnered a lot of attention and, unsurprisingly, accusations of insider trading or someone having advance knowledge have been leveled on social media.

Polymarket did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

This isn't the first time this has happened and not the first time Venezuela has been the subject of unusual betting patterns either. Back in October, a series of successful bets were placed on Venezuelan opposition leader-in-exile, Maria Corina Machado, winning the Nobel Peace prize, just 12 hours before the announcement was made public. There the tip-off was uploads to the Nobel website.

Polymarket is not listed publicly and founder and chief executive officer Shayne Coplan has not indicated any intention to float at present. As of late 2025, estimates of Polymarket's value reached $9 billion after a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., sits on its board of Polymarket and the venture capital fund where he is a partner, 1789 Capital, owns a stake in Polymarket.

-Jules Rimmer

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01-05-26 0549ET