Ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize award announcement, some supporters were holding out hope that President Donald Trump would secure the win. Polymarket users had a different feeling.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado received a surge in betting in the hours before she won the prize, her odds taking off from around 3% at 6:00 p.m. Thursday to as high as 73.5% around 8 p.m.
It’s unclear what caused the odds to tilt in her favor. Machado’s odds to win stayed in the high 60s, sitting at around 70% right before her win was announced around 5 a.m. Friday. Before the odds leaned in her favor, Trump and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of former Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, were favored for the award.
The betting market observed that its users had the news before the announcement. “Once again, Polymarket had the news more than 12 hours before it was announced,” Polymarket said in a post on X.
Polymarket humorously said that Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, could have bet on the market before he told Machado.
Machado’s win led to a payday for some users. One first-time user put thousands toward a Machado win on Thursday night, cashing out around $30,000 Friday morning.
Another user put about $30,000 on a Machado win and about $24,000 on a loss by Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms. The user was also new, with no other bets, and made about $18,000 on their wagers. Their username is an apparent reference to Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, whom Machado is leading her opposition against.
User 6741 got ahead of the curve with a $921 bet at 6:42 p.m. ET Friday night, when Machado’s odds sat between 3% and 7% to win, with no other prior betting history. Machado then became the betting leader at around 6:50 p.m. That user would profit about $47,000 on just markets surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize, with nearly $120,000 on Machado alone.
It’s unclear who the users are or how they felt empowered to place large bets on Machado. There was more than $2 million in trading volume around Machado, second only to Trump with nearly $14 million.
Some speculated the bets were from users with insider information.
“The other day a student asked me about the prevalence of insider trading in prediction markets,” Harvard economics professor and former Obama administration Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman wrote on X about Machado’s win on Polymarket. “I now have an answer.”
Polymarket wasn’t alone in predicting Machado’s win.
A different betting market, Kalshi, saw a surge in betting around midnight on Friday. Machado’s odds went from 1% to over 50%.
Machado dedicated her win to Trump and the “suffering people of Venezuela” on Friday morning.
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“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” she wrote on X. “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
The Washington Examiner contacted Polymarket for comment, but received no response.