The alleged $400,000 insider bet by a Green Beret on a Venezuela raid may be just the tip of the iceberg. A recent report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) analyzed over 435,000 Polymarket contracts and $54.4 billion in cumulative volume, finding that longshot bets on military and defense outcomes win at unusually high rates, sometimes exceeding 50%.
This is significantly higher than the 14% success rate for similar bets in other political markets. The ACDC attributes this discrepancy to information asymmetries, including insider trading or specialized knowledge, which can create an unfair advantage for a small group of traders. The report's findings are consistent with existing research, which suggests that a small percentage of traders drive prices and capture most profits on Polymarket. For instance, a working paper from London Business School and Yale found that roughly 3% of traders account for most price discovery, while a separate analysis by Solidus Labs showed that fewer than 1% of wallets capture 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 report concludes that some participants may be operating with information advantages that others do not have, and recommends measures such as identity verification, conditional payouts, and restrictions on certain markets to mitigate these issues. Ultimately, the report calls for an evidence-informed debate on whether the public should be betting on these outcomes at all.