The alleged $400,000 insider bet by a Green Beret on a Venezuela raid initially seemed like an isolated incident. However, a recent report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) suggests that this may be just the tip of the iceberg. The nonprofit research group analyzed over 435,000 settled Polymarket contracts from January 2021 to mid-March 2026, totaling $54.4 billion in cumulative volume. The findings indicate 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%.
Typically, such 'longshot' bets succeed around 14% of the time across political markets. The report's authors note that markets tied to specific government policies, such as military and defense, are particularly challenging to forecast using public information, making them 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, not just by reacting faster, but by having access to more information.
Polymarket emphasizes its market surveillance and cooperation with the Department of Justice, particularly in the Venezuela case, and prohibits trading on confidential knowledge, as does Kalshi. The ACDC report adds to a growing body of research indicating that a small percentage of traders account for most price discovery on Polymarket. A working paper from London Business School and Yale found that roughly 3% of traders drive prices, while separate analysis from Solidus Labs showed that fewer than 1% of wallets capture 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 secret, a small number of traders placed large, well-timed bets on the outcome. The pattern of winning longshot bets outperforming losing ones in the two-hour windows before market resolution, particularly in markets tied to military decisions, suggests that some participants may have information advantages. The report recommends identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, restrictions on markets decided by small groups, and limits on contract granularity.
Ultimately, it calls for an evidence-informed debate on whether the public should be betting on these outcomes at all.