Polymarket referred dozens of military insider trading accounts to DOJ
Polymarket referred dozens of accounts showing potential military insider trading to the Department of Justice, according to a source familiar with the matter. The Anti-Data Collective identified more than 150 wallets on Polymarket International that may have traded on inside U.S. military information, with research firm ACDC finding the wallets profited roughly $8 million. The trades involved contracts on military actions where bettors allegedly possessed advance knowledge of classified or non-public defense intelligence. Polymarket itself has not been accused of wrongdoing.
The referral means Polymarket is now an active witness in federal espionage investigations, not merely an offshore platform with a transparency problem. Prosecutors can subpoena its records to build cases under theft-of-secrets statutes that carry far steeper penalties than securities fraud.
For the platform, the stakes are existential: Congress already has two confirmed military insider trading cases to cite, and Democratic lawmakers in California and Nevada have pressed the CFTC to tighten oversight. Any mandate to pre-screen traders for security clearances would force a surveillance rebuild its public ledger architecture cannot easily accommodate. Competitors with less transparent order books gain a regulatory relative advantage.
Polymarket's referral of dozens of military insider trading accounts to the Department of Justice already follows an Israeli Air Force major's arrest and a U.S. soldier's prosecution for classified wagers on Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela strikes.