Pricey bets tied to real-world military and defense actions on the prediction marketplace Polymarket are succeeding at surprisingly high rates, according to a new report raising alarm bells about insider trading on the platform and others like it.
The Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC) published a report on Thursday analyzing settled Polymarket markets for potential signs of insider trading, including unusually successful longshot bets.
The report found that across most markets on the platform, longshot bets—defined by the group as wagers valued at $2,500 or more with odds below 35%—had a success rate of about 14%.
But the numbers were significantly higher in political markets, where longshot bets succeeded 25% of the time. Within that category, bets tied to military and defense-related events had an even more striking success rate of 52%, according to the report. To say that kind of success rate is statistically unlikely is the very definition of making a redundant statement.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.
The analysis arrives just a week after the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) arrested an American soldier accused of making more than $400,000 betting on Polymarket over when Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro would be removed from office.
According to prosecutors, 38-year-old Gannon Ken Van Dyke participated in the “planning and execution” of the military operation that led to Maduro’s capture back in January. The DOJ alleges that between Dec. 27, 2025, and Jan. 2, 2026, Van Dyke placed 13 bets totaling more than $33,000 on Polymarket, including wagers that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31.
Bets like these, along with similarly successful wagers on the timing of U.S. strikes on Iran in March, have intensified scrutiny of the obvious insider trading prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.
So much so that U.S. lawmakers introduced a new bill last month that would ban several types of bets on prediction market platforms, including wagers on “government actions, terrorism, war, assassination, and events where an individual knows or controls the outcome.“
“What we have found is that in this administration, there are clearly individuals in the White House who are making money off of when the United States goes to war or not,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, one of the senators who introduced the bill, in a video posted on X at the time. “And it’s time that we just say there’s no circumstances in which government action should be pushed one way or another, based upon an individual’s desire to cash in.”
Beyond banning bets that could give government officials financial incentives to push for certain outcomes, the bill also targets wagers on events where insiders may know or even control the outcome ahead of time, like bets on who performs at the Super Bowl halftime show and Oscar winners.
Also on Thursday, the Senate passed a resolution banning senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets.
While both Kalshi and Polymarket prohibit insider trading, the platforms have also promoted the idea that “experts” and well-informed users can improve market accuracy by placing more informed bets.
In an apparent attempt to address the growing backlash, Polymarket announced on Thursday a new partnership with the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis aimed at detecting potential patterns of insider trading.
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