An aerial view reveals Google’s “Googleplex” company workplace in Mountain View, California on Could 20, 2026.
Josh Edelson/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Josh Edelson/AFP through Getty Pictures
A Google software program engineer has been charged with utilizing confidential firm data to make $1.2 million on Polymarket, within the second identified federal felony case linked to profitable trades on a prediction market website.
Michele Spagnuolo, 36, an Italian citizen who lives in Switzerland, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, cash laundering and different counts for allegedly inserting bets on search tendencies primarily based on inside Google knowledge that tracked person searches.
“In contrast to the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the end result of those wagers earlier than the buying and selling public did as a result of he had accessed Google’s confidential, commercially priceless inside knowledge,” in accordance with the federal indictment, which authorities unsealed on Wednesday.
Prosecutors say Spagnuolo, working underneath the username AlphaRaccoon, positioned quite a lot of wagers on Google’s most-searched individual of 2025.
He wager practically $1 million that Kanye West’s spouse, Bianca Censori, wouldn’t be the most-Googled individual. He additionally wager greater than $600,000 that Pope Leo XIV wouldn’t take the highest spot, and he positioned one other wager that the rapper D4vd can be the No. 1 most-Googled particular person at a time when most Polymarket merchants “assigned near-zero chance” to the singer, who has been charged with homicide.
In all, in accordance with prosecutors, Spagnuolo wager $2.7 million on 25 separate outcomes within the Google search market, netting $1.2 million in revenue.
The charging paperwork say as soon as Spagnuolo transferred his winnings out of his cryptocurrency pockets, he eliminated the title AlphaRaccoon from his Polymarket account.
The Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee introduced a separate civil case towards Spagnuolo for allegedly violating commodities legislation.
Spagnuolo didn’t return a request for remark.
Google stated in an announcement that the corporate cooperated within the federal authorities’s investigation into Spagnuolo, who has been positioned on depart.
“The worker accessed our advertising materials utilizing a device out there to all staff, however utilizing such confidential data to position bets is a severe breach of our insurance policies,” stated Google spokesperson Jaclyn Vazquez.
Olivia Chalos, Polymarket’s chief authorized officer, stated in an announcement that it “is the one prediction platform to this point whose cooperation has led to insider buying and selling expenses in the USA,” including that, since customers on the positioning use crypto to commerce, it’s “clear, traceable and dangerous actors depart footprints.”
Whereas the legal guidelines that apply to the prediction market trade are much less strict than inventory market guidelines, what’s generally understood as “insider buying and selling,” or abusing personal confidential data for revenue, is unlawful underneath federal legislation.
However in prediction market boards on messaging websites reminiscent of Discord, customers scour markets for big, uncommon trades and encourage others to comply with these bets with their very own wagers.
“AlphaRaccoon has alpha,” stated one person on Discord, utilizing the slang time period for any data that provides you an edge on prediction markets, pointing to Spagnuolo’s massive bets on the most-Googled individual of the yr earlier than Google had launched it. “Examine AlphaRaccoon account” stated one other person when requested how they need to wager available on the market.
Prediction markets websites reminiscent of Kalshi and Polymarket have erupted in recognition in President Trump’s second time period, permitting anybody to wager on firm bulletins, geopolitical occasions, the end result of artwork auctions, elections and a seemingly limitless array of different subjects.
And as increasingly more individuals search income in each aspect of contemporary life, on-line sleuths have more and more recognized wagers that seem too good to be true, suspiciously assured long-shot bets which have netted prediction market merchants six- or seven-figure income.
In a single such occasion final month, a grasp sergeant with the U.S. Military Particular Forces was charged with utilizing categorized details about the seize of Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro to rake in additional than $400,000 on Polymarket.
The Spagnuolo indictment was unsealed a day after President Trump vowed on Reality Social to permit the prediction market trade to “thrive” by asserting federal regulators’ “unique authority” over the controversial betting websites.
For months, administration officers have been preventing state officers in courtroom over who ought to police the prediction market trade.
State officers say the platforms are basically playing operations and needs to be topic to state playing guidelines, whereas the Trump administration views Polymarket and Kalshi as providing a kind of “futures contract” that falls underneath the umbrella of the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, which has traditionally overseen markets on issues like grain futures, crude oil and treasured metals.
Polymarket’s hottest platform, which is predicated in Panama, is technically inaccessible to American customers. It was compelled to close down its U.S. operation in 2022 as a part of a settlement with federal regulators who stated the positioning was working and not using a buying and selling alternate license.
Two years later, the FBI raided the condominium of the corporate’s founder, Shayne Coplan, as a part of a probe into whether or not Polymarket was violating that settlement.
The Trump administration dropped that investigation. Trump officers even invited Coplan to the White Home for a summit on cryptocurrency.
The president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is an advisor to Polymarket and Kalshi, and a associate in 1789 Capital, which is a significant investor in Polymarket.
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