The alleged insider trading incident involving a Green Beret is potentially just the tip of the iceberg, as a new report from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective suggests a broader issue with military insider trading on Polymarket. The nonprofit research group analyzed over 435,000 markets and $54.4 billion in cumulative volume from January 2021 to mid-March 2026 and found 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%.

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 more susceptible to information asymmetries, including insider trading or specialized knowledge, which can create an environment where a small group of traders can consistently outperform others. The report's findings are consistent with other research, including a working paper from London Business School and Yale, which found that roughly 3% of traders account for most price discovery on Polymarket, and a separate analysis from Solidus Labs, which showed that profits are concentrated among a small group of traders, with 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 a small number of traders placed large, well-timed bets on the outcome, despite the Pentagon's efforts to keep the operation secret. The pattern of winning longshot bets extends beyond this single event, with the report finding that in five of the six two-hour windows before market resolution, winning longshot bets outnumbered losing ones, contrary to what market prices imply. The report's authors suggest that some participants may be operating with information advantages that others do not have, and recommend measures such as identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, and restrictions on markets whose outcomes are decided by small groups.

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