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 it may be part of a larger issue. The nonprofit research group analyzed over 435,000 settled Polymarket contracts, worth $54.4 billion, from January 2021 to mid-March 2026, and found that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes have unusually high win rates, sometimes exceeding 50%. This is significantly higher than the typical 14% success rate for similar bets in other markets.

The authors of the report note that markets related to government policies, such as military and defense, are more challenging to predict using public information alone, making them more susceptible to insider trading or specialized knowledge. As a result, a small group of informed traders can consistently outperform others, not just by reacting faster, but also by having access to more information. Polymarket emphasizes its market surveillance teams and cooperation with the Department of Justice on the Venezuela case, and prohibits trading on confidential knowledge on its platform, as well as on Kalshi. The ACDC report's findings add to existing research indicating that a small percentage of traders drive most price discovery on Polymarket, with roughly 3% of traders accounting for most price movements, 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. The pattern of winning longshot bets in military and defense markets is consistent, with winning 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 have information advantages. The ACDC report recommends identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, restrictions on markets whose outcomes are decided by small groups, and limits on contract granularity.

The report concludes by calling for an evidence-informed debate on whether the public should be betting on these outcomes at all.