Insider Betting on Polymarket

Insider trading is rife on Polymarket:

Analysis by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a non-profit research and advocacy group, found that long-shot bets—­defined as wagers of $2,500 or more at odds of 35 percent or less—­on the platform had an average win rate of around 52 percent in markets on military and defense actions.

That compares with a win rate of 25 percent across all politics-focused markets and just 14 percent for all markets on the platform as a whole.

It is absolutely insane that this is legal. We already know how insider betting warps sports. Insider betting warping politics—and military actions—is orders of magnitude worse.

Posted on May 8, 2026 at 1:49 PM2 Comments

Comments

BENN May 8, 2026 2:36 PM

There’s no victim or crime to supposed insider trading.

Even for the military, there’s no way to control all possible metadata channels and the risk is almost zero in betting markets.

David Orr May 8, 2026 2:51 PM

I don’t think that insider trading with military secrets is legal? There are a number of laws forbidding leaking military secrets.

Also the ToS for all the market platforms forbids insider trading.

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