'60 Minutes' finds nine linked Polymarket accounts won $2.4 million on US military bets
CBS '60 Minutes' identified nine connected accounts on crypto-native prediction market Polymarket that collectively earned $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on US military operations, according to reporting posted Sunday, May 17, 2026. The investigation highlights shared trading patterns across the cluster, raising concerns about coordinated activity and information edges. Polymarket, which operates outside CFTC oversight, has faced prior scrutiny over large-account behavior. In related coverage, analytics firm Bubblemaps also flagged the same $2.4 million in suspected insider winnings on Iran war bets, while CBS News separately quoted Rob Schwartz calling the activity a new kind of insider trading. The accounts' near-exclusive focus on military outcomes distinguishes this pattern from typical diversified prediction-market trading.
Polymarket now confronts its third concurrent insider-trading investigation on military contracts, joining the NYT and Bubblemaps probes. Any corroboration of surveillance gaps across CBS, NYT and DOJ lines of inquiry could harden bipartisan Senate support for binding federal registration requirements before the House vote.
Becomes the third major investigation to flag suspected insider trading on Polymarket military contracts this quarter, after the NYT and Bubblemaps probes, hardening the pattern that offshore platforms are drawing repeated scrutiny on sensitive national-security markets.