After Trump's crackdown on Venezuela, the betting in the prediction market has escalated.

Prediction markets Polymarket are boiling over. After the U.S. crackdown on Venezuela and the overthrow of Maduro’s regime, a mysterious trader profited over $400,000 through precise bets, sparking a re-pricing of geopolitical risks across the entire market. Traders are no longer just focusing on events that have already happened but are collectively betting on the next targets of the Trump administration — from Iran and Greenland to Colombia and Cuba. Prediction markets are becoming a real-time “geopolitical betting arena.”

Geopolitical Expansion of Prediction Markets

Trader’s New Target List

Following the Venezuela incident, Polymarket quickly added several related contracts. According to the latest news, traders can now bet on questions such as: Will the U.S. soon strike Colombia or Cuba? Will Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei be ousted before June 30? Can Trump “take” Greenland by the end of the year?

The most watched are the contracts related to Iran. Monitoring shows that the probability of Khamenei’s ousting has risen from below 20% before U.S. actions against Venezuela to 36%. More notably, according to Lookonchain monitoring, four newly created wallets are betting on “the U.S. attacking Iran before January 31, 2026,” with no other predictions made by these wallets, sparking speculation about possible insider information.

From Single Events to Systemic Risk Pricing

This is not just an increase in trading volume but a fundamental shift in trader mindset. Against the backdrop of a more hardline Trump administration foreign policy, investors are beginning to systematically reassess geopolitical risks. Prediction markets are evolving from being “post-event analysis” tools to “pre-event betting” platforms.

According to reports, these war-related contracts are in a legal and ethical gray area. But it is precisely this ambiguity that makes prediction markets a unique “intelligence tool” — anyone can place bets based on their own information, and market prices reflect the collective judgment of global participants on various geopolitical events in real time.

Controversies and Risks Facing the Platform

“Vague Definitions” Trigger Trust Crisis

Polymarket recently faced controversy over the Venezuela incident. The platform refused to classify the recent U.S. military raid on Venezuela and the arrest of President Maduro as an “invasion,” despite the U.S. controlling the regime and taking the leader to the U.S. This decision led to millions of dollars in “invasion” contracts being marked as “not triggered,” causing strong dissatisfaction among bettors and criticism for “redefining facts.”

This exposes a fundamental issue with prediction markets when dealing with real political and war events: vague definitions, opaque judgment standards, and a regulatory vacuum. When the platform’s rulings are controlled by a few, questions about fairness and neutrality arise.

Concerns Over Insider Trading

Four new wallets heavily betting on Iran, and a mysterious trader profiting over $400,000 from the Venezuela incident, all point to the same question: is insider trading involved? While some argue that Polymarket is an “on-chain intelligence tool accessible to anyone worldwide and fully transparent,” on-chain transaction transparency does not eliminate concerns about information asymmetry.

Additionally, Polycule (a trading bot project based on Polymarket) was recently hacked, affecting $230,000 of user funds, highlighting ongoing technical security risks in the prediction market ecosystem.

Platform Expansion and Politicalization

From Geopolitics to Real Estate

It’s worth noting that Polymarket is actively expanding its business scope. The platform recently partnered exclusively with Dow Jones Media to provide prediction market data to media outlets including Barron’s and The Wall Street Journal. It also announced the launch of real estate prediction markets, collaborating with Parcl, an investment project backed by Coinbase, allowing users to bet on housing prices in specific city areas.

This indicates that Polymarket is expanding from purely political event predictions to broader economic fields. But this expansion also means the platform is gradually becoming part of mainstream finance and media ecosystems.

Platform’s Political Positioning

It’s noteworthy that after former President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., invested and joined the board, Polymarket received approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and re-entered the U.S. market. This background adds more political sensitivity when handling geopolitics related to the Trump administration.

Summary

The rising popularity of Polymarket reflects a deeper phenomenon: prediction markets are becoming “pricing tools” for geopolitics. Inspired by successful bets on Venezuela, traders are beginning to systematically bet on the next moves of the Trump administration. However, issues such as vague definitions, insider trading risks, and politicization also remind us — when betting involves real wars and political upheavals, the “transparency” and “fairness” of prediction markets are far from ideal. The market still needs clearer rules, stricter regulation, and deeper ethical considerations.