🔗 Share this article An Forecasting Platform Participant Earned $Nearly Half a Million on Bets Predicting Maduro's Downfall. A smartphone screen displays a prediction market application logo. A bettor made nearly half a million dollars from wagers on the downfall of Venezuela's president just before it was publicly declared, raising questions about the possibility of profiting from inside knowledge of American actions. Sudden Shift in Forecasts Bets placed on the crypto-platform, a blockchain-based service, that the leader would be no longer in control by the end of January rose in the time leading up to President Donald Trump stated on January 3rd that the Venezuelan leader had been taken into custody. A single trader, which registered on the site last month and made four bets, all on Venezuela, made more than $436K from a starting bet of $32,537. The identity is unknown. The user had only a blockchain identifier for identification. Probability Spikes Before News Break Market statistics shows that traders put the odds of a political change at just under 7% in the late afternoon of Friday, January 2nd. But the odds had jumped to eleven percent by late Friday night and spiked dramatically in the first hours of January 3rd, suggesting a sharp shift in positions just before the official statement was made. "That trade has all the signs of a trade based on non-public details," commented an industry expert. A small number of other platform users also earned tens of thousands of dollars from similar wagers. Legal Questions Grows Politicians are beginning to pay attention. Proposed legislation introduced on the start of the week seeks to ban public officials from making trades on prediction markets if they have "material nonpublic information" related to a wager. Industry Context Prediction markets have grown significantly in the United States, with traders able to bet on everything from elections to current affairs. Prediction markets faced scrutiny under the Biden administration. However it has experienced less resistance during the Trump presidency. Insider trading is a crime in the traditional financial markets, but there are more ambiguous rules in the prediction market space. An official representative for a competing service said their site "strictly forbids insider trading of any form."