Faris Adani
As a disturbing array of details continues to surface surrounding the prediction betting scandal linked to the recent United States attacks on Venezuela, the narrative increasingly points towards an unsettling conclusion: that an individual with privileged, nonpublic knowledge exploited this information for substantial personal financial gain. This scenario paints a grim picture of potential insider trading, not in the traditional stock market, but within the burgeoning, largely unregulated world of prediction markets.
Fresh investigative reporting by the Wall Street Journal has brought to light a series of highly suspicious transactions. The anonymous bettor on Polymarket, a decentralized prediction market platform, significantly increased their wager just five hours prior to a massive military operation. This operation saw over 150 US aircraft unleash a devastating assault on Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. The ensuing attacks, which resulted in the deaths of at least 80 civilians and military personnel, satisfied the precise conditions of the anonymous bettor’s wager, ultimately netting them a staggering $410,000. The sheer scale of the profit, combined with the catastrophic human cost, casts a long, dark shadow over the entire affair.
The timing of these bets is perhaps the most astonishing and damning element of the emerging scandal. The WSJ‘s meticulous breakdown of the transaction logs reveals an almost unbelievable proximity between the mysterious insider’s final financial maneuvers and the initiation of the military strike. On January 2nd, within a narrow window between 8:38 PM and 9:58 PM, the bettor committed over $20,000 to bets predicting an imminent attack on Venezuelan soil. In a chilling confluence of events, at 10:46 PM that very same evening, President Donald Trump issued the executive orders authorizing the military strike. This means the final, crucial bets were placed less than an hour before the presidential directive that would irrevocably alter the fate of Caracas and secure the bettor’s windfall.
The impact on the ground was immediate and devastating. Around 1:00 AM on January 3rd, the first explosions began to rip through Caracas. Government buildings, civilian apartment complexes, and even vital technical facilities at the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research were among the targets destroyed or severely damaged. By 8:41 AM that same morning, with the smoke still clearing and the human toll still being tallied, the savvy trader began the process of cashing out their earnings. A sum of approximately $410,000, won under circumstances that are profoundly unsettling, was transferred, representing a profit likely secured at an unspeakable cost in human lives and infrastructure.
Adding another layer of suspicion to this already murky situation is the revelation regarding the age of the Polymarket account used for these transactions. As political researcher Tyson Brody meticulously pointed out on social media, the account in question was barely a week old when the US strikes against Venezuela commenced. This detail further strains the credibility of any argument suggesting these were merely "lucky" bets. It raises questions about why an individual with such extraordinary prescience would open a brand-new account specifically for these high-stakes wagers, rather than using an established one.
While it is theoretically conceivable, however improbable, that an individual could register a nascent account, possess no insider information, and then proceed to make a series of unfathomably lucky bets that just happened to align perfectly with a covert military operation, the confluence of evidence renders this explanation highly implausible. The incredible precision of the timing, the substantial sum wagered, and the fresh creation of the betting account collectively point towards a far more sinister explanation.
Given these extraordinary circumstances, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the insider was someone either directly embedded within the Trump administration or a member of the US armed forces who possessed advance knowledge of the impending attacks. Another disturbing possibility, as suggested by the original reporting, is that the insider could have been an employee at one of the media companies that, according to reports from Semafor, knew about the administration’s plans before they happened but made the editorial decision not to report on them immediately. This would imply a breach of trust on multiple levels, leveraging journalistic privilege for personal gain.
"It’s more likely than not that this was an insider," Polymarket analyst Tre Upshaw candidly told the WSJ, articulating a sentiment that resonates broadly across observers. "That’s a lot of money to put in at that price, without a lot of news." Upshaw’s analysis underscores the unusual nature of the bets; the market conditions prior to the authorization of the strike would not typically support such a heavy, confident wager without some form of privileged information driving it.
The concept of insider trading is well-established and heavily regulated within traditional financial markets like the stock market. Severe penalties, including hefty fines and imprisonment, are routinely meted out for violations, designed to maintain fairness and integrity. However, when it comes to the nascent and rapidly evolving world of prediction markets such as Polymarket, the landscape is disturbingly different. It remains, for all intents and purposes, a "wild wild west" — an unregulated frontier where such activities currently operate with impunity.
This lack of oversight is not an accidental omission but, in part, a consequence of specific policy decisions. The WSJ article, citing OurFinancialSecurity.org, notes that this regulatory void is thanks to policy moves made by the Trump administration during its second term in office. These actions seemingly allowed for a more permissive environment for cryptocurrency-based platforms and prediction markets, inadvertently creating loopholes that could be exploited by individuals with illicit knowledge. The ethical implications are profound: profiting from war and human suffering, enabled by a regulatory vacuum and potentially by government officials themselves, challenges fundamental principles of justice and accountability.
The gravity of this situation has not gone entirely unnoticed in political circles. Earlier this week, Democratic representative Richie Torres stepped forward, introducing a bill specifically designed to penalize insider trading for all government officials on prediction markets. This legislative effort represents a crucial first step towards addressing the current regulatory deficit. However, the path to passing such a bill is often arduous, and a final vote remains a long way off – if it ever comes to fruition. The political will to regulate these new financial frontiers, especially when they might expose uncomfortable truths about government actions, is often contested.
The Venezuela Polymarket scandal transcends a mere financial anomaly; it strikes at the heart of governmental integrity, public trust, and the ethical use of power. It raises critical questions about who benefits from geopolitical conflict, how information is controlled and disseminated, and whether those in positions of power can be held accountable for exploiting their access. If individuals within the government or those with foreknowledge of its actions can profit financially from war without legal repercussion, it sets a dangerous precedent, eroding the very foundations of democratic governance and fostering an environment where corruption can thrive under the guise of technological innovation. The urgent need for transparency, robust regulation, and stringent ethical guidelines for prediction markets, especially concerning events influenced by government actions, has never been more apparent. The world awaits a clear explanation and decisive action to ensure that such a morally bankrupt scenario is never allowed to recur.
