The Daily Mail has the bizarre story of someone - maybe George Soros - placing an $850 million bet in the futures market on the prospects of a US debt downgrade.

The latest bet was made on July 21 on trades of 5,370 ten-year Treasury futures and 3,100 Treasury bond futures, reported ETF Daily News.

Now the investor's gamble seems to have paid off after Standard and Poor's issued a credit rating downgrade from AAA to AA+ last Friday.

Whoever it is stands to earn a 1,000 per cent return on their money, with the expectation that interest rates will be going up after the downgrade.

The link has been made to Mr Soros in part because he has been tied to President Obama's administration since 2008, reported The Examiner.

He also recently stopped managing money for outside investors, meaning he is under less scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commision

But the mystery bet could easily have been made by another trader with similar resources, despite Mr Soros's links with the Obama administration.

I always thought that Soros holds his one-worlder, universal government positions because it would make the entire planet his personal playground. One government is a lot easier to fool than hundreds and if the world were to adopt some kind of universal financial system - his stated dream - he could more easily manipulate the economies of the world.

This is a guy who knows how to cover his tracks so it is doubtful we will ever know for sure. But profiting off of inside knowledge is how Soros made his billions and it wouldn't surprise anyone if he's done it again.