Bets on the fall of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro have shed light on the spectacular rise of prediction markets: portals where people place bets on everything from sporting events, to Trump’s next strikes, to the resurrection of Jesus. Some are profiting from the predictions, while others are concerned about real world human and geopolitical impacts of prediction markets.

Issued on: 08/02/2026 - 17:45

By: Diya GUPTA Advertisements by the American company Polymarket predict a victory for Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York. © Olga Fedorova, AP Only a handful of people in the world knew what was going to happen in the early hours of January 3, before ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ was launched. The extraordinary two-hour-and-twenty-minute military intervention by air, land and sea culminated in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. It was a top-secret operation, which stunned the world.

But a hint of what was to occur emerged in the online, crypto-based prediction market portal Polymarket, where anonymous users bet on real world events. User 0x31a56e wagered $32,537 that Maduro would be out of power by the end of January when the odds of that happening on the afternoon of January 2 were placed at just 6.5%. By midnight, those odds jumped to 11% and surged just before the operation was executed. The suspiciously timed bet paid off – anonymous user 0x31a56e made a neat profit upwards of $436,000 in just one night. The account has since vanished.

This odd incident pushed the online prediction market – which was growing but still fairly niche – into the mainstream spotlight. These are platforms where people can bet on the outcome of an enormous variety of future events – from the common (who will win the Super Bowl) to the bizarre (will Jesus be resurrected in 2026). These companies insist that they are not gambling portals, but legitimate financial markets, a chimera of a stock exchange and a crypto platform (though some watchdogs disagree).

Two players, Kalshi and Polymarket, have dominated the space in recent years. Of a total volume of $44 billion in prediction markets in 2025, Kalshi and Polymarket were responsible for a combined total of $38 billion: one of the fastest growing financial markets is one that most people ignore, or don’t know about.

Shayne Coplan, founder and CEO of betting platform Polymarket, participates in the State of Crypto Summit, in New York, Thursday, June 12, 2025. © Richard Drew, AP Trades on these websites are not to be confused with polls, insists Polymarket’s precocious founder Shayne Coplan, in an interview with 60 Minutes. Coplan, who founded the company in 2020 when he was just 21 years old, said that Polymarket tries to predict actual outcomes – "You make money if you're right. You lose money if you're wrong. And as a result it creates this information that's useful for people."

Some people have profited from making informed wagers – including a prolific, successful Polymarket trader who goes by the name Domer and features in the same 60 Minutes report. The former professional poker player moved to Polymarket because it was ‘more exciting’. He won over $100,000 predicting an American Pope, and even more after he picked JD Vance to be Donald Trump's presidential running mate. Domer went against the odds because he believed US President Donald Trump likes one syllable names because “he (Trump) is very into marketing”.

Even established media outlets like CNN and CNBC have struck deals to incorporate Kalshi prediction markets into coverage.

But prediction markets do not come without an enormous share of criticism. Polymarket, specifically, has been at the root of controversy because it relies on cryptocurrency and blockchain to run.

Users like 0x31a56e, who predicted Maduro’s capture, can trade anonymously, without being traced. While it is possible that they just got very lucky, analysts say it’s far more likely that someone with inside information realised they could make a quick buck. On crypto-native platforms, there’s no real way of knowing.

It’s because of this reason that in most of Europe, where a patchwork of rules must be adhered to, Polymarket is not legal or easily accessible. Some countries treat prediction markets as gambling, and the ones that do not still require licensing. Regulators are wary, with good reason.

Prediction markets were also heavily regulated under the Biden administration, but under President Trump, these sites have profited from deregulation and a huge boom in power.

But critics are concerned about the platforms commodifying real world events and encouraging people to bet on political, military and diplomatic events that have real-world consequences.

Maduro is only one example of a litany of shady trades made on prediction markets. Hours before the announcement of Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, one user bet thousands in her favour: the likelihood of her winning leapt from 3.75 percent to nearly 73 percent within two hours – prompting authorities in Norway to open an investigation.

Similarly, in early January, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt ended her briefing after 64 minutes and 30 seconds. Her abrupt exit left traders wondering whether Leavitt had deliberately stopped before the 65-minute mark to turn a profit. Polymarket had predicted at 98 percent odds that the briefing would run past 65 minutes.

Alex Goldenberg, an intelligence analyst and fellow at the Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience at Rutgers University, says the signs are clear: “Across these cases, a consistent pattern emerges: new accounts with no trading history taking high-conviction, low-probability positions hours before those events occur. These aren't gradual market movements reflecting evolving public information. They bear the textbook signatures of insider trading in traditional financial markets.”

The point of these markets is to reward people with superior information i.e., those who collect the right data and analyse accurately could stand to make money. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, he says, but there’s a fine line between analysis and inside information. “Scale that logic to domains governed by secrecy: military operations, covert action, diplomatic negotiations. In those domains, ‘superior information’ means access to classified or non-public knowledge. The platform architecture doesn't distinguish between a well-informed analyst and someone with a security clearance who just walked out of a briefing.”

Prediction markets’ blurry lines can also create serious problems for national security.

Polymarket prediction market website is displayed on a computer screen Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Philadelphia. © Wally Santana, AP One account, originally named RicoSauve666 and later Rundeep, bet on several operations connected to Israeli military action with extremely consistent outcomes. Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet ) ultimately opened an investigation into the user.

“The high-conviction, low-probability trades we saw before the Venezuela operation and Israeli strikes bear the hallmarks of someone with access monetizing what they know,” says Goldenberg. “That's privatizing state secrets. Diplomats, military personnel, intelligence analysts, contractors, and anyone in the national security apparatus now has a potential avenue to monetize non-public, sensitive information for personal profit.”

Dangerous biases can occur when an outcome is presumed – Goldenberg presents a hypothesis: “Suppose the US is about to carry out an operation against Iran and multiple high-conviction, low-probability bets suddenly appear on a prediction market that it's going to happen tomorrow,” he posits. “You've potentially given an adversary advance notice of an operation through publicly visible market activity.

"An adversary placing large bets on specific military outcomes can create a situation where we ask ourselves, does someone know something? That alone sows confusion and distorts decision-making."

The predictions on these platforms are visible to anyone. Diplomatic, geopolitical and military decisions could potentially be made on assumed outcomes – which could be particularly dangerous if these markets can be manipulated.

“When a prediction market shows odds on a US strike suddenly jumping, that movement could become news. Media reports it, policymakers see it. The market doesn't just predict. It shapes perception.”

This is a far greater risk on crypto native platforms like Polymarket, where trades take place anonymously, often in offshore jurisdictions. They are extremely difficult to trace back to an individual.  “Who investigates? Which jurisdiction applies?” asks Goldenberg. “Today, the honest answer is that in many cases, they wouldn't be caught. Several countries, including France, have already concluded these platforms can't be adequately regulated and banned them outright.”

There’s also the important question of who runs the market themselves: the US president's son Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket. His venture capital firm 1789 invested an undisclosed “double-digit millions of dollars” into Polymarket in 2025. Polymarket’s founder sees this as a positive – saying in an interview, “This admin is very pro-innovation, and pro-crypto, and pro-Polymarket, which is amazing… I'm a young entrepreneur. If I have people who believe in what I do, who understand how politics works and can help me… there's nothing wrong about that.”

Furthermore, Trump Media and Technology Group, the owner of the president’s social-media platform, Truth Social, has announced its own platform, Truth Predict.

There are real, human consequences of turning the world into one big casino where serious events with real repercussions are being reduced to a set of numbers. “When you're looking at a screen that says 'Will Country X invade Country Y by March 31? Yes/No', you're interacting with an abstraction. But the underlying event involves air strikes, casualties, displaced populations. The platform strips away human reality and replaces it with a contract and a price,” says Goldenberg.

“It fundamentally changes civic discourse. Instead of asking ‘should we strike’, which is a moral and strategic question, we're asking ‘what are the odds we strike’. We've taken events with real human consequences and made them feel like any other financial instrument. That normalization is worth paying attention to."

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