nostr:nprofile1qyd8wumn8ghj7ctjw35kxmr9wvhxcctev4erxtnwv4mhxqpq2472qld2v3x73jhqkmlmuq3pyxt4h6gmk2v08ynravd7xsnz5m5qwfk7aw
https://cdn.prod.dailykos.com/images/1514416/large/AP26005509842461.jpg?1767644930
Sure, invading a country and illegally abducting its leader is nightmarish and immoral, but what if you could make some serious coin by betting on it? Some lucky duck seems to have had insider info that the United States was going to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and boy, did it pay off—literally. In the days immediately leading up to Maduro’s capture, a newly created anonymous account on Polymarket, a popular betting website, made seven bets totaling just over $32,500 that Maduro would be taken by Jan. 31. The final bet was placed mere hours before President Donald Trump announced the kidnapping on Saturday. Nicolás Maduro is being taken to a federal courthouse in Manhattan on Jan. 5 after her was abducted from Venezuela by the Trump administration. At the time of the bet, it seemed like a long shot. But then it conveniently turned out to be very true, netting our anonymous friend a payout of $436,759.61 for the “prediction.” As of publication, Polymarket has not responded to various news outlets’ requests for more information about the bettor. If it seems like betting on this sort of thing is well past “unseemly” and more firmly in the territory of “horrifying scourge,” you’re not wrong. Polymarket and other prediction markets are a plague, nothing but state-sanctioned gambling with limited oversight. These markets have pushed for years to be allowed to bet on things like election outcomes, including suing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Biden administration because the regulator blocked it from offering so-called election contracts. That’s a fancy way of saying that the administration tried to stop it from letting people bet on elections. You’ve probably already guessed that the Trump administration has adopted what is always quaintly called a hands-off approach to regulating these things. Ostensibly, both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission should be providing regulatory guidance here, but regulations are for suckers. Prediction markets do not function much differently from mobile sports betting apps. However, sportsbooks are regulated at the state level while prediction markets are regulated at the federal level, meaning they can be in every state—even where app-based sports betting is illegal. Fun! Thanks to all of these hands being off, prediction markets notched almost $28 billion in trading volume from January to October 2025, with people betting on everything from the day a sports superstar retires and election outcomes to government jobs reports and corporate layoffs. Attorney General Pam Bondi is one of many of Trump’s pals who paid off big from the administration’s corruption. Of course, if one happens to have foreknowledge about what the government will do, then those prediction markets are ripe for exploitation. As news about this lucky bettor broke, Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York proposed that these platforms be covered under the STOCK Act, which blocks insider trading by members of Congress. This should definitely happen, but it doesn’t solve the problem of an administration apparently prone to tipping off its pals—and not just in prediction markets. Witness the president going on social media to encourage people to buy stocks, and gosh, golly, only hours later, pauses a bunch of tariffs—leading to the stock market soaring. Sure would have been neat to get a tipoff like that, right? And on the flip side, wouldn’t it be great to be able to exit any market positions that might be hurt by government action? Well, Trump’s got you covered. Two days before he unveiled new tariffs that drove the market down, an agency official somehow knew to sell off $50,000 in stock. This isn’t an isolated incident. ProPublica found that more than a dozen executive-branch officials and congressional aides are very, very good guessers. Attorney General Pam Bondi shed between $1 million and $5 million in Trump Media shares on April 2, just before Trump’s post-closing bell announcement about his “Liberation Day” tariffs—a move that crushed the markets. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is also a terrific prognosticator, somehow knowing to dump shares in nearly three dozen companies right before a Feb. 11 Trump announcement imposing reciprocal tariffs. A cartoon by Clay Bennett. But the real MVP of apparent insider trading is none other than the president himself. From August to October 2025, Trump bought at least $82 million in bonds, investing in industries that coincidentally benefited from his government policies. Chipmakers, tech companies, and big banks—Trump kept hoovering up bonds while simultaneously using his power to favor those companies. Trump also bought millions in Intel bonds after the government took a 10% stake in the company. Similarly, he reportedly snapped up $6 million in Boeing bonds just as the Defense Department happened to be awarding the company multibillion-dollar contracts. Trump’s griftiness is cynical, all-encompassing. Everything is about taking advantage of his position to line his pockets, awarding your taxpayer dollars to corporations and then turning around and getting richer off the move. And, hey, if his team can seemingly slip a little tip about an illegal invasion to a needy friend, all the better.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/1/6/2361578/-Cha-ching-Trump-creates-brave-new-world-of-insider-trading?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main