The alleged $400,000 insider bet by a Green Beret on a Venezuela raid initially seemed like an isolated incident. However, a new report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) implies it might be just the tip of the iceberg. The nonprofit research group analyzed over 435,000 Polymarket contracts from January 2021 to mid-March 2026, totaling $54.4 billion in cumulative volume.

The results show that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes achieve success rates that are difficult to attribute to skill or luck alone, sometimes exceeding 50%. Typically, such 'longshot' bets succeed around 14% of the time across political markets.

The authors suggest that markets related to government policies, such as military, defense, and foreign affairs, are harder to predict using public information, making them more vulnerable to information asymmetries, including insider trading. This creates an environment where a small group of informed traders can consistently outperform others, not just by reacting faster, but by possessing more knowledge. Polymarket emphasizes its market surveillance and cooperation with the Department of Justice on the Venezuela case, noting that trading on confidential knowledge is prohibited.

The ACDC report complements existing research indicating that roughly 3% of traders drive most price discovery on Polymarket, 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 19 longshot bets totaling $164,292 were placed in the hours leading up to the strike, with eight wallets sharing about $1.8 million in profits.

Despite the Pentagon's efforts to keep the operation secret, a small number of traders placed well-timed bets on the outcome. The pattern persists 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 mispricing or shifts in public expectations, the consistency of these patterns, especially in markets tied to military decisions, implies that some participants may have information advantages. The ACDC recommends identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, restrictions on markets 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.