How a mystery gambler scored big on Maduro’s ouster

神秘赌徒如何凭借马杜罗下台大赚一笔

Post Reports

2026-01-08

20 分钟
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Just hours before U.S. aircraft surged into Caracas as part of an operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, an anonymous person placed a final online bet that the Venezuelan president would soon be ousted.  The mystery gambler netted more than $400,000 on that long-shot bet – raising questions about whether they had inside knowledge of the operation.  The payout has drawn attention to the growing world of prediction markets, online bets on real-world scenarios that some critics warn could have unintended negative effects. Today, Martine Powers talks with banking reporter Andrew Ackerman about the loosely regulated prediction market industry and what we know about the mystery gambler who won big on the Maduro ouster. Today’s show was produced by Emma Talkoff. It was edited by Ariel Plotnick with help from Dennis Funk and mixed by Sean Carter.  Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
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  • Since the U.S.

  • capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro,

  • it remains pretty hazy who the winners and losers of this whole situation are going to be.

  • But there was at least one person who definitely came out on top.

  • An anonymous gambler, just hours before the raid.

  • This person, or maybe people,

  • placed a hefty online bet that Maduro would be out of power by the end of January.

  • So after the news broke that Maduro had been taken,

  • this mystery gambler walked away with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  • So now everyone wants to know, who placed this bet?

  • And did they know something that the rest of us didn't?

  • From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports.

  • I'm Martine Powers.

  • It's Wednesday, January 7th.

  • I cannot stop thinking about this strange side story to the news out of Venezuela.

  • Is this evidence of some kind of national security leak?

  • But also, how is it possible, or even legal,

  • that someone could bet on the capture of a world leader So today I'm talking with banking reporter Andrew Ackerman about the growing world of betting on real life events and what we know about this gambler's huge payday.

  • Andrew, thank you so much for being here.

  • You're welcome.