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

The findings indicate 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 over 50%. Typically, such 'longshot' bets succeed around 14% of the time across political markets.

The report's authors note that markets tied to government policies, such as military and defense, are harder to predict using public information, making them 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. Polymarket emphasizes its market surveillance teams and cooperation with the Department of Justice on the Venezuela case, stressing that trading on confidential knowledge is prohibited on the platform. The report's findings add to existing research, including a working paper from London Business School and Yale, which found that roughly 3% of traders drive most price discovery on Polymarket.

Separate analysis by Solidus Labs showed that profits are highly concentrated, with less than 1% of wallets capturing about half of all gains. The ACDC 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.

The Pentagon's use of decoy bombers and stealth aircraft to avoid detection did not prevent a small number of traders from placing well-timed bets on the outcome. The pattern of winning longshot bets outperforming 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 betting on these outcomes at all.