The Green Beret was just the start: New data suggests military insider trading crisis on Polymarket
A new report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective reveals unusually high success rates for longshot bets in Polymarket's military and defense markets, suggesting potential information asymmetry or insider trading. While most prediction market bets succeed at a 14% rate, military-related longshot bets win over 50% of the time, raising concerns about fairness and transparency. The findings build on prior research showing that a small fraction of traders drive prices and capture most profits on the platform.
- ▪Longshot bets in Polymarket's military and defense markets succeed 51.8% of the time, compared to a 14% success rate in other political markets.
- ▪Fewer than 1% of traders on Polymarket capture about half of all profits, according to blockchain analytics firm Solidus Labs.
- ▪In the hours before the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iran, 19 well-timed longshot bets totaling $164,292 yielded $1.8 million in profits for eight wallets.
- ▪The Anti-Corruption Data Collective analyzed over 435,000 Polymarket contracts and $54.4 billion in trading volume from January 2021 to March 2026.
- ▪Polymarket prohibits trading based on non-public information and has cooperated with the Department of Justice on related investigations.
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MarketsShareShare this articleCopy linkX iconX (Twitter)LinkedInFacebookEmailThe Green Beret was just the start: New data suggests military insider trading crisis on PolymarketNew data shows unusually high win rates in defense bets, building on research that 3% of traders drive prices and under 1% capture most profits.By Sam Reynolds|Edited by Jamie CrawleyUpdated Apr 30, 2026, 12:05 p.m. Published Apr 30, 2026, 11:57 a.m. 3 min readMake preferred on (Ryuno/Unsplash)What to know: Longshot bets win 51.8% of the time in Polymarket's military and defense markets, against a 14% baseline across political markets, a new study from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective has found.The findings suggest these markets are more vulnerable to information asymmetry, where a small group of traders may be…
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