Google Employee Earns $1.2M from Insider Data on Polymarket

US federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Google employee Michele Spagnuolo, accusing him of using his position to obtain inside information and illegally profit about $1.2 million on the prediction market platform Polymarket. The complaint was unsealed in the Southern District of New York's federal court, and Spagnuolo was arrested in New York in the early morning of the same day.

Prosecutors said that Spagnuolo, a Google information security engineer, had access to the company's internal systems, including an internal tool that can query confidential data on "trending searches of the year." He used this access to find out in advance that the singer d4vd would become the most searched person on Google in 2025, and bet on this outcome as "AlphaRaccoon" on Polymarket. After Google publicly released the list of the year's trending searches on December 4, 2025, the account immediately profited about $1.2 million.

In fact, as early as last December, users in the Polymarket community questioned the unusual trading behavior of the "AlphaRaccoon" account. Google stated in a declaration that the tool used by the employee was available to all employees, but "using such confidential information for betting is a serious violation of company policy," and has currently placed him on administrative leave. Polymarket indicated that it is cooperating closely with the US Attorney's Office and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, stating that this case is the first insider trading charge facilitated through the platform's cooperation.

After appearing in court on Wednesday, Spagnuolo did not enter a plea and was released on a $2.25 million bail bond. He also faces a civil lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

This is the second high-profile insider trading case in Polymarket in over a month. In April of this year, an active-duty US Army Special Forces officer was arrested for using confidential information to bet on contracts related to the arrest operation of Venezuelan President Maduro and profiting over $400,000. The successive exposure of the two cases has once again raised concerns about the regulatory loopholes of this prediction market platform.