Nearly a week after US strikes bombarded Venezuela during the kidnapping of its president Nicolás Maduro, betting platform Polymarket is refusing to pay out users who gambled on the invasion of Venezeula.
Polymarket is a controversial prediction market where users can gamble on the outcome of real-world events, like who will win a certain election, or which side will control a certain village in the Ukraine-Russo war by a pre-specified date.
In this particular wager, Polymarket was supposed to pay out if “the United States commences a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela,” a determination to be made by “a consensus of credible sources,” the New York Times reported. To those who wagered on such an outcome, the events of January 3rd were proof positive that an invasion had taken place.
Instead, Polymarket came out with a statement arguing the opposite.
“This market refers to US military operations intended to establish control,” the note declares. “President Trump’s statement that they will ‘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.”
Those looking to cash in on the brutal attacks — which have killed at least 100 people so far — weren’t too impressed with the platform’s semantical wit.
“Pretty sure this should be yes after Trump said approximately 20 times in his press conference that the US now controls Venezuela,” groused a bettor with $1,876 wagered on a US invasion of Venezuela by March 31st. “We are going to run the country,” another user exclaimed.
“They think there will be no punishment for all this fraud. They are openly changing the rules and manipulating the market,” one user who bet $123 on the outcome complained. “A major investigation file is being prepared regarding Polymarket by the US Department of Justice. Don’t worry.”
Betting market participants relitigating results they don’t like is quickly becoming a pattern in the sector, with similar debates playing out over Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” pick and Elon Musk’s overly ambitious promises about Tesla’s self-driving taxi program.
Still, the latest incident heaps drama on Venezuela’s role in betting markets; it comes amidst some pretty compelling allegations that an insider with advanced knowledge of the US attack on Venezuela scored over $400,000 betting similar lines. (The alleged insider’s bets won all their bets.)
In this case however, every bettor who thought they were crowdsourcing the truth instead got a time honored lesson: no matter what you’re betting over, the house always wins.
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