Massive pre-announcement wagers on Nicolás Maduro’s arrest fuel debate over transparency and regulation in decentralized prediction markets.

Authorities classify event-trading platforms as unlicensed gambling, reflecting a growing international regulatory trend.

The state’s cease-and-desist order challenges blockchain-based platforms

Polymarket refused to pay out over $10.5 million in bets after the U.S. captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, saying the operation did not meet their definition of an invasion. Traders are angry, arguing the action clearly counted as an invasion, while concerns have also been raised about possible insider trading on the platform.

A small group of newly created Polymarket wallets made over $630,000 by betting on the removal of Venezuela’s president shortly before a surprise US military operation confirmed the outcome. The timing raised insider trading concerns and prompted US lawmakers to move towards banning government officials from trading on prediction markets.

Kalshi has overtaken Polymarket to become the world’s largest prediction market by trading volume, setting a new industry record after processing $2.3 billion in weekly trades.

Coinbase is preparing to enter the fast-rising prediction markets sector, according to new findings from tech researcher Jane Manchun Wong, who uncovered an unreleased Coinbase-branded prediction platform hidden in the company’s public source code.

Yahoo Finance has partnered with Polymarket to add real-time prediction market data to its website. This allows users to see crowd-sourced probabilities for political, economic, and financial events alongside traditional market information.

Prediction markets, once confined to a small circle of crypto-savvy insiders, are rapidly entering the mainstream. Now, Gemini — one of the most tightly regulated exchanges in the U.S. — is preparing to stake its claim in this emerging sector.

Romania has officially joined the list of countries to have blacklisted Polymarket, comparing the comparison between leading crypto prediction platform with an unlicensed gambling operator running outside government oversight.