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Polymarket refuses payouts on US-Venezuela bets
Prediction market platform Polymarket has refused to settle millions of dollars in bet payments linked to the US invading Venezuela, arguing that President Maduro’s capture doesn’t qualify as an invasion.
On January 3, 2026, the US’s Operation Absolute Resolve captured Maduro and transferred him to New York.
On this occasion, traders had placed bets totalling over $10.5 million to settle by January 31, 2026; however, Polymarket later announced that the event didn’t trigger a winning outcome.
Polymarket stated:
“The contract referred specifically to US military operations intended to establish control over Venezuelan territory. President Trump’s statement that the US would ‘run’ Venezuela, while referencing ongoing talks with the Venezuelan government, does not alone qualify the snatch-and-extract mission to capture Maduro as an invasion.”
After the ruling, the probability of an invasion before the end of January fell to just 5%. This caused backlash from users who accused the platform of redefining outcomes after the event occurred.
Polymarket allows users to vote on yes-or-no outcomes using cryptocurrency, but recently the platform has been pushing the appropriate boundaries by offering political and military-connected event contracts, and the latest Maduro bet on Polymarket triggered an insider trading bill.
Venezuela-related bets increased from single-digit probabilities to over 99% as soon as the operation became public.
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