Gamblers appear to have made large profits after successfully betting on the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Ahead of Donald Trump’s shock announcement on Saturday morning, traders seemed to have anticipated Maduro’s political demise by placing timely wagers on so-called “prediction markets”.

Prediction markets are online gambling platforms that allow individuals to bet against each other on a range of markets that have been created by the host website.

They are typically binary bets – for example, punting on yes/no or higher/lower outcomes – with the markets ranging from the identity of the next Republican US presidential nominee (JD Vance/Marco Rubio) to wagers on whether the S&P 500 index will rise or fall on a particular trading day on Wall Street.

Last Friday, an apparent new trader on Polymarket.com seemed to invest $30,000 on the market: Maduro out by January 31, 2026?. After Maduro’s capture was announced on Saturday morning, that same investor seemed to have made profits of $436,759.61.

That windfall – as well as corresponding losses to punters on the other side of the bet – was realised in a matter of hours.

Data on the same market published on the Polymarket site suggests that, at 3pm (GMT) on 2 January, there was a 5.5% implied chance of Maduro no longer being the president of Venezuela by the end of the month. The chance had risen to 11% by 6am on 3 January, 28.5% at 6.30am and 56.5% by 7.30am. By 9.30am the market was trading at almost 99%.

Meanwhile, a related Polymarket wager – Maduro in US custody by January 31? – also seems to have had attracted two prescient trades, matched at prices of 0.22 and 0.11 (implying a 22% and 11% chance) early on Saturday before jumping to above 0.99.

Prediction markets have started to gain popularity in the US, with the volume of bets growing from under $100m in early 2024 to over $13bn, according to a report from the crypto firms Dune and Keyrock. The US president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, has taken advisory roles at the two best-known companies, Kalshi and Polymarket.

However, they are not a new development. Almost 26 years ago, a website called Flutter.com was launched in the UK by a trio of American entrepreneurs. It allowed low-stakes bets between individual punters, although the concept did not take off in the UK and the company was swiftly taken over by the betting exchange Betfair.

Polymarket has been contacted for comment.