The alleged insider trading by a Green Beret, which involved a $400,000 bet on a Venezuelan raid, may be just the tip of the iceberg. A recent report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC), a nonprofit research organization, has analyzed over 435,000 Polymarket contracts and $54.4 billion in cumulative volume from January 2021 to mid-March 2026. The results show that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes have success rates that are difficult to explain by skill or luck alone, with some cases reaching success rates of over 50%.

This is significantly higher than the 14% success rate typically seen in political markets. The authors of the report suggest that markets related to government policies, such as military and defense, are more susceptible to information asymmetries, including insider trading or specialized knowledge. This creates an environment where a small group of informed traders can consistently outperform others. The report's findings add to existing research that indicates roughly 3% of traders account for most price discovery on Polymarket, with fewer than 1% of wallets capturing about half of all gains.

The ACDC report examines the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran as a case study, where 19 longshot bets totaling $164,292 were placed in the hours leading up to the strike, resulting in profits of about $1.8 million for eight wallets. The pattern of well-timed bets on military and defense outcomes extends beyond this single event, with winning longshot bets outnumbering losing ones in five of the six two-hour windows before market resolution.

While longshot bets can outperform due to various reasons, including mispricing or shifts in public expectations, the consistency of the patterns suggests that some participants may be operating with information advantages. The report recommends measures such as identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, restrictions on markets whose outcomes are decided by small groups, and limits on how granular contracts can become. Ultimately, the report calls for an evidence-informed debate about whether the public should be betting on these outcomes at all.