Polymarket Whales Front-Run Maduro Capture; Torres Drafts ‘Insider’ Ban
Three fresh wallets netted $630,000 on Polymarket hours before Maduro’s arrest, prompting Rep. Ritchie Torres to propose a ban on federal officials trading event contracts.
Fresh Wallets, Perfect Timing, $630k Profit
Three mysterious wallets drained liquidity from Polymarket’s Venezuela contracts hours before U.S. forces confirmed the capture of Nicolás Maduro. The accounts, funded mere days prior, executed precision bets that netted a combined $630,484 profit as the news broke early Saturday morning.
On-chain sleuths at Lookonchain identified the cluster. One wallet, 0x31a5, wagered approximately $34,000 on Maduro’s exit, cashing out nearly $410,000. Another, SBet365, turned $25,000 into $145,600. A third wallet parlayed a smaller $5,800 stake into a $75,000 windfall. These addresses traded exclusively on Venezuela-related outcomes. They held no other positions.
Congress Targets the “Capitol Hill Hedge”
The prescient trading triggered an immediate legislative recoil. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) announced plans to introduce the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026. The bill specifically bars federal elected officials, political appointees, and executive branch employees from trading prediction contracts tied to government policy when they possess nonpublic information.
“Power cannot replace principle. Nor can the ends justify the means,” Torres stated, criticizing the unauthorized military action while moving to close the information arbitrage loop.
This legislation aims to extend the logic of the STOCK Act to the prediction market sector. It directly challenges the sector’s “unregulated oracle” status just as institutional giants enter the fray. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), parent company of the NYSE, invested $2 billion in Polymarket late last year, validating a market that handled over $44 billion in 2025 volume.
The Feature-Bug Dichotomy
Proponents argue that prediction markets function correctly only when they reflect all available information, including insider knowledge. The price signal on the “Maduro out” contract spiked Friday night, effectively broadcasting the regime change before official White House channels. Yet for regulators, the $630,000 payout represents a failure of market integrity rather than a triumph of information efficiency. The Torres bill signals that Washington intends to treat political event contracts with the same insider trading scrutiny as traditional equities.
