The alleged $400,000 insider bet by a Green Beret on a Venezuela raid, initially thought to be an isolated incident, may be just the tip of the iceberg. A recent report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC), a nonprofit research group, analyzed over 435,000 markets and $54.4 billion in cumulative volume on Polymarket from January 2021 to mid-March 2026. The findings suggest 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 seeing success rates above 50%. This is significantly higher than the typical 14% success rate for longshot bets in political markets.
The authors of the report note that markets related to government policies, such as military and defense, are particularly challenging to forecast using public information, making them more vulnerable to information asymmetries, including insider trading. The gap between informed and uninformed traders in these markets may be significant, allowing a small group of traders to consistently outperform others. Polymarket has emphasized its market surveillance and cooperation with the Department of Justice on the Venezuela case, highlighting that trading on confidential knowledge is prohibited on the platform. The ACDC report builds upon existing 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, resulting in eight wallets sharing about $1.8 million in profits.
The Pentagon's use of decoy bombers and stealth aircraft to avoid detection did not prevent a small number of traders from placing large, well-timed bets on the outcome. The pattern of winning longshot bets outnumbering losing ones in the two-hour windows before market resolution, especially 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 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 allowed to bet on these outcomes at all.