A Google engineer was arrested and charged with using confidential information to make millions on prediction markets.
Concretely, Michael Spagnuolo has been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. An Italian citizen, he had been working for the company for over 10 years and was based in Zurich, Switzerland.
The complaint details that Spagnuolo placed trades on Polymarket between October and December of last year, making $1.2 million by betting on who would be Google's most searched person of the year.
"Unlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google's confidential, commercially valuable internal data," said FBI agent Brandon Racz.
Several such cases have taken place as of late. Earlier this year a special forces soldier was accused of taking advantage of his knowledge about plans to capture Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on prediction markets.
Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke appeared in Manhattan federal court and was released on $250,000 bond after pleading not guilty.
Van Dyke, 38, faces charges of unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
According to prosecutors in 2025 Polymarket began offering binary events related to potential U.S. action against Maduro. For example, the contracts included the future likelihood of U.S. forces being in Venezuela by certain dates and the likelihood of Maduro being removed from power.
Prosecutors allege that Van Dyke created an account on Polymarket on Dec. 26, 2025, and began trading in Maduro and Venezuela-related markets, making 13 bets.
"Van Dyke bet a total of approximately $33,034 on those outcomes while in possession of classified nonpublic information about Operation Absolute Resolve," prosecutors said.
After Maduro was captured, Van Dyke's winnings on related contracts totaled about $409,000. Prosecutors allege that Van Dyke then sent most of the proceeds from Polymarket to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before depositing them into a newly created online brokerage account.
Other connected Polymarket accounts have come under scrutiny after wagering more than $2.4 million on U.S. military action.
The nine accounts have a 98 percent win rate after making more than 80 bets, CBS News reported earlier this month. The network noted that the person or people behind the accounts have bet on several aspects of the Iran war, including when U.S. strikes would begin, the removal of Iranian leadership, and the announcement of a ceasefire.
"This might be the most insane pattern we have found on Polymarket so far," Bubblemaps co-founder and CEO Nicolas Vaiman told the outlet. "Luck alone cannot explain those numbers."
Overall, more than $1 billion has been bet on U.S. military decisions and actions.
