The alleged insider trading incident involving a Green Beret has shed light on a potentially larger issue. A recent analysis by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a nonprofit research organization, has examined over 435,000 settled Polymarket contracts from January 2021 to mid-March 2026, with a cumulative volume of $54.4 billion.
The findings indicate that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes have achieved success rates that cannot be easily explained by skill or luck, with some instances reaching over 50%. This is significantly higher than the average success rate of 14% for such bets in political markets.
The researchers suggest that markets related to government policies, such as military and defense, are 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. The report's findings are consistent with previous research, which has shown that a small percentage of traders account for most price discovery on Polymarket, with fewer than 1% of wallets capturing approximately half of all gains. The analysis of the June 2025 U.S.
strikes on Iran as a case study found that a small number of traders placed large, well-timed bets on the outcome, despite the operation being designed to be unreadable from the outside. The pattern of winning longshot bets outnumbering losing ones in the hours leading up to the strike suggests that some participants may have had information advantages that others did not have.
The researchers recommend 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.