The alleged $400,000 insider bet by a Green Beret on a Venezuelan raid initially seemed like an isolated incident. However, a new report from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) suggests it may be just the tip of the iceberg.
After analyzing over 435,000 settled Polymarket contracts and $54.4 billion in cumulative volume from January 2021 to mid-March 2026, the nonprofit research group found that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes win at rates that cannot be explained by skill or luck alone. Typically, such 'longshot' bets succeed around 14% of the time across political markets, but in military-linked contracts, success rates have reached as high as 50% in some cases.
The authors of the report note that markets tied to specific government policies, such as military and defense and foreign affairs, are particularly challenging to forecast using public information alone, making them more susceptible to information asymmetries, including insider trading or specialized knowledge. This creates conditions where a small group of informed traders can consistently outperform others, not just by reacting faster, but by possessing more knowledge.
Polymarket has emphasized its market surveillance teams and cooperation with the Department of Justice on the Venezuela case, stressing that trading on confidential knowledge is prohibited on the platform. The ACDC report's findings contribute to a growing body of research indicating that a small percentage of traders account for most price discovery on Polymarket, with roughly 3% of traders driving prices, and fewer than 1% of wallets capturing about half of all gains. The 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, with eight wallets sharing about $1.8 million in profits. Despite the Pentagon's efforts to keep the operation secretive, a small number of traders placed large, well-timed bets on the outcome.
The pattern extends beyond this single event, with winning longshot bets outnumbering losing ones in five of the six two-hour windows before market resolution across Polymarket's military and defense category. While longshot bets can outperform due to mispricing or shifts in public expectations, the consistency of these patterns, especially in markets tied to military decisions, suggests that some participants may be operating with information advantages.
The ACDC recommends implementing 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.