cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/17009
Recently, we reported on the rise of so-called ‘prediction markets’. While these sites claim they’re not gambling, they are for all intents and purposes gambling. The key difference is they allow people to gamble on real-life events rather than simply sports. This is why we’re now seeing dystopian occurrences like the following over Venezuela:
Some war related insider trading? A brand new account in polymarket, only invested in US going to war with Venezuela and Maduro out by January 31. Up 13k so far, was spending thousands on Maduro out at bargain prices as recently as 4 hours ago. Now it’s at .50. pic.twitter.com/GLnfvAfEZc
— tyson brody (@tysonbrody) January 3, 2026
Now that Maduro out is at .99 following the Trump announcement this account has in one week realized nearly $150k in profit and has hundreds of thousands more in unrealized profits pic.twitter.com/AFRq2y06wD
— tyson brody (@tysonbrody) January 3, 2026
Gamblification on Venezuela
The difference between prediction markets and gambling is that in the former, users are buying stocks in a question. The difference in value between the ‘yes’ traders and the ‘no’ traders determines the odds.
Given that people are gambling on real-life events, there’s obviously an opportunity for people with inside knowledge to game the system. If you were part of the Trump administration, for example, you could put your money on Venezuelan president Maduro being forced out, knowing that plans were afoot to abduct him. You could also be a close relative of Trump who happens to be a strategic advisor to Kalshi (one of the two main prediction markets):
Donald Trump Jr is a paid strategic advisor for Kalshi — where they are setting odds so people can bet on the decisions made by his father.
Just an all-time grift. https://t.co/X3r7SonDxZ pic.twitter.com/VcqBJsGIK2
— Melanie D'Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) December 22, 2025
Oh, and Trump Jr. is also an investor in the other prediction market, Polymarket:
Feels like a problem that the president's son is invested in Polymarket, a crypto betting site that lets people wager on election outcomes, via a VC firm that he joined after his father won.
It's not like Trump has a history of trying to manipulate election results or anything. pic.twitter.com/SKLeWoWF6g
— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) September 4, 2025
Regarding ‘insider trading’, people have highlighted that it’s actually encouraged to an extent:
A newly created Polymarket account invested over $30,000 yesterday in Maduro's exit. The US then took Maduro into custody overnight, and the trader profited $400,000 in less than 24 hours. Insider trading is not only allowed on prediction markets; it's encouraged. https://t.co/EtZyW1IWTa pic.twitter.com/MzsU9kOU73
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) January 3, 2026
Kalshi’s founders have spoken about inside traders being an advantage because it means the predictions end up being more accurate, as Coffeezilla covered in the following video:
Trade wars
Prediction markets recently became more well known because of the following:
The co-founder of Kalshi says: " The long-term vision is to financialize everything and create a tradable asset out of any difference in opinion." pic.twitter.com/M1gf0leJFV
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) December 3, 2025
It attracted so much attention because it perfectly encapsulates what we all know to be true; that no matter what goes wrong in the world, the rich always profit, because the system is stacked in their favour.
Creating financial markets from division is the obvious end point to this sociopathic culture.
Featured image via Pexels
By Willem Moore
From Canary via This RSS Feed.
If this many people knew my question is how the fuck wasn't it on China or Russia's radar and why the fuck was that intelligence not passed on and why the fuck was Maduro not more hidden.
Something does not add up.
China truly doesnt seem to care much for opposing US imperialism. They may have judged that losing maduro wouldn't significantly harm their interests
They knew.
Notice this happened after the Trump-Xi meeting.
Also look at China’s UNSC votes after the meeting, all ceding ME/NA issues to the US.
It has been suspected but now becoming increasingly clear that the outcome of the meeting was China ceding Middle East and Latin America in exchange for Taiwan and Japan.
It’s sad that Maduro met Xi at the May Day parade at Moscow and his envoy the day he was captured. He seemed to have put an unrealistic amount of hope on China to rescue his country.
Hours before it happened the Chinese envoy for latam posted a picture of him meeting Trump and saying something to the effect of "we look forward to a healthy and fruitful relationship with the US by leaving latam alone".
They 100% knew and approved of it.
X to doubt in regards to Taiwan. I don't see any reality where the US doesn't continue to extort Taiwan. In fact it's probably more likely the CPC does a 180 on Taiwan because their rationale for owning Taiwan doesn't logically make sense. It's clearly about face and what happened to them during the century of humiliation.
Oh and it was probably Baron. He gets all the hot tips. He was the guy that shorted Bitcoin before it fell off a cliff. Probably.
Oh they fully knew. They just didn't intervene for whatever reason.