The alleged $400,000 insider bet by a Green Beret on a Venezuelan raid initially seemed like an isolated incident. However, a new report from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) indicates that it might be just the tip of the iceberg.
The nonprofit research group analyzed over 435,000 markets and $54.4 billion in cumulative volume on Polymarket from January 2021 to mid-March 2026. The findings show that low-probability bets on military and defense outcomes have won at rates that are difficult to attribute to skill or luck alone. Typically, such "longshot" bets succeed around 14% of the time across political markets, but in military-linked contracts, success rates have exceeded 50% in some cases. The authors of the report note that markets related to government policies, such as military and defense, are particularly challenging to predict using only public information, making them more vulnerable to insider trading or specialized knowledge.
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, especially in the Venezuela case, and prohibits trading on confidential knowledge. The report's findings add to existing research indicating that a small percentage of traders drive most price discovery on Polymarket, with roughly 3% of traders accounting for the majority.
Separate analysis by Solidus Labs shows that profits are highly concentrated, with less than 1% of wallets capturing about half of all gains. The ACDC report explores the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran as a case study, where several date-specific contracts were listed on Polymarket.
Despite the operation being designed to be undetectable, a small number of traders placed large, well-timed bets on the outcome, with 19 longshot bets totaling $164,292 being placed in the hours leading up to the strike. Eight wallets shared about $1.8 million in profits, with one taking nearly $500,000. This pattern is not isolated, as across Polymarket's military and defense category, winning longshot bets outnumbered losing ones in five of the six two-hour windows before market resolution, contrary to what market prices would suggest. 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, funded through the Fund for Constitutional Government, recommends measures such as identity verification for bettors, conditional payouts on suspicious wagers, restrictions on markets decided by small groups, and limits on contract granularity. The report concludes by calling for an informed debate on whether the public should be allowed to bet on these outcomes at all.