The alleged insider trading incident involving a Green Beret's $400,000 bet on a Venezuelan 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 from January 2021 to mid-March 2026.
The findings show that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes have unusually high win rates, sometimes exceeding 50%, which cannot be explained by skill or luck alone. This suggests that some traders may have access to confidential information, creating an uneven playing field.
The report's authors note that markets related to government policies, such as military and defense, are particularly vulnerable to information asymmetries. The study also found that a small group of traders consistently outperform others, with roughly 3% of traders driving price discovery and fewer than 1% of wallets capturing about half of all gains. The ACDC report examines the June 2025 US 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 profits of about $1.8 million for eight wallets. The consistent patterns of winning longshot bets in military and defense markets imply that some participants may be operating with information advantages.
The report recommends implementing identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, and restrictions on markets whose outcomes are decided by small groups. Ultimately, the report calls for a debate on whether the public should be allowed to bet on these outcomes at all.