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Maybe all of this sounds eerily familiar. In January, someone on Polymarket made a series of suspiciously well-Emed bets right before the U.S. aRacked a foreign country and deposed its leader. By the Eme Nicolás Maduro was extracted from Venezuela and flown to New York, the user had pocketed more than $400,000. Perhaps this trader and the Iran beRors who are now flush with cash simply had the luck of a lifeEme—the gambling equivalent of making a half-court shot. Or maybe they knew what was happening ahead of Eme and flipped it for easy money. We simply do not know. Polymarket traders swap crypto, not cash, and conceal their idenEEes through the blockchain. Even so, invesEgaEons into insider trading are already under way: Last month, Israel charged a military reservist for allegedly using classified informaEon to make unspecified bets on Polymarket. The pla[orm forbids illegal acEvity, which includes insider trading in the U.S. But with a few taps on a smartphone, anyone with privileged knowledge can now make a quick buck (or a hundred thousand). Polymarket and other predicEon markets—the saniEzed, industry-favored term for sites that let you wager on just about anything—have been dogged by accusaEons of insider trading in markets of
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