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 trading volume, revealing a disturbing pattern of unusually high win rates in low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes. Typically, longshot bets succeed around 14% of the time, but in military-linked contracts, success rates have reached as high as 50%. This discrepancy suggests that some traders may be exploiting information asymmetries, including insider trading or specialized knowledge, to consistently outperform others.
The ACDC report builds on existing research, which has shown that a small group of traders, roughly 3%, drive price discovery on Polymarket, while fewer than 1% of wallets capture about half of all gains. The new findings imply that some of this edge may stem from access to confidential information. A case study on the June 2025 U.S.
strikes on Iran illustrates this phenomenon. Despite the Pentagon's efforts to keep the operation secret, a small number of traders placed large, well-timed bets on the outcome, with eight wallets sharing about $1.8 million in profits.
The report's findings are consistent across Polymarket's military and defense category, 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 other factors, such as mispricing or shifts in public expectations, the consistency of the patterns 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 contract granularity.
Ultimately, the report calls for an evidence-informed debate on whether the public should be betting on these outcomes at all.