A Google employee allegedly used inside information to win $1.2 million on Polymarket
A Google employee allegedly used inside information to win $1.2 million on Polymarket
一名谷歌员工涉嫌利用内幕信息在 Polymarket 上赢取 120 万美元
Federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with fraud after he allegedly made $1.2 million on Polymarket bets related to Search-related trends in 2025, as reported earlier by ABC News. 据美国广播公司（ABC News）早先报道，联邦检察官指控一名谷歌员工涉嫌欺诈，称其在 Polymarket 上通过押注 2025 年搜索相关趋势赢取了 120 万美元。
In their now-unsealed complaint, prosecutors allege that Michele Spagnuolo “knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google’s confidential, commercially valuable internal data.” Spagnuolo was arrested in New York on Wednesday but released on a $2.25 million bond, ABC News reports. He is charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. 在现已解封的起诉书中，检察官指控 Michele Spagnuolo “在交易大众之前就已知晓这些赌注的结果，因为他访问了谷歌机密且具有商业价值的内部数据。”据 ABC News 报道，Spagnuolo 周三在纽约被捕，后以 225 万美元保释。他被控商品欺诈、电信欺诈和洗钱罪。
Spagnuolo made bets on Polymarket under the username AlphaRacoon, with his successful search-related wagers catching the attention of outlets like Forbes and users on social media last December. In one instance, Spagnuolo correctly guessed that a singer named D4vd would “be the #1 searched person on Google” in 2025, despite the “near-zero probability” assigned by Polymarket, according to the complaint. Spagnuolo 以“AlphaRacoon”为用户名在 Polymarket 上进行投注。去年 12 月，他一系列成功的搜索相关押注引起了《福布斯》等媒体和社交媒体用户的关注。起诉书显示，其中一个例子是，尽管 Polymarket 给出的概率“接近于零”，但 Spagnuolo 准确预测到一位名叫 D4vd 的歌手将成为 2025 年“谷歌搜索量排名第一的人物”。
At the same time, Spagnuolo allegedly bet that Pope Leo XIV and Kendrick Lamar would not appear on Google’s “Year in Search 2025” lists, which are difficult to predict because of how they’re calculated. Google says it ranked last year’s terms based on which ones saw the “highest increase in traffic” — not the highest number of searches — between January 1st, 2025 and November 25th, 2025. “By measuring the spike in interest rather than the total number of searches, we can identify the trends that were unique to 2025.” 与此同时，Spagnuolo 还押注教皇利奥十四世（Pope Leo XIV）和肯德里克·拉马尔（Kendrick Lamar）不会出现在谷歌的“2025 年度搜索”榜单上。由于计算方式的原因，这些榜单很难预测。谷歌表示，其去年榜单的排名依据是 2025 年 1 月 1 日至 11 月 25 日期间“流量增长最快”的词条，而非搜索总量最高的词条。“通过衡量兴趣的激增而非搜索总数，我们可以识别出 2025 年独有的趋势。”
“Once he won, Spagnuolo then took deliberate steps to conceal his unlawful use of nonpublic information by attempting to obscure the source and ownership of his unlawful proceeds,” the complaint says. Last month, federal prosecutors charged US Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke with fraud for allegedly making a $400,000 Polymarket bet on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. 起诉书称：“在获利后，Spagnuolo 采取了蓄意措施，试图掩盖其非法所得的来源和所有权，以隐瞒其非法使用非公开信息的行为。”上个月，联邦检察官指控美国陆军士兵 Gannon Ken Van Dyke 犯有欺诈罪，原因是他涉嫌在 Polymarket 上押注 40 万美元赌委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗（Nicolás Maduro）被捕。
Several states have taken steps to regulate prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi due to concerns about insider trading, but the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and President Donald Trump have pushed back on these decisions. The CFTC claims it has the “exclusive” authority over prediction markets. 由于对内幕交易的担忧，一些州已采取措施监管 Polymarket 和 Kalshi 等预测市场平台，但美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）和唐纳德·特朗普总统对这些决定表示反对。CFTC 声称其对预测市场拥有“排他性”管辖权。
In a statement on X, Polymarket called itself “the enforcement leader,” saying its “market integrity infrastructure” flagged Spagnuolo’s activity. “Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints,” the company writes, without noting whether the people putting their money down know that. Polymarket 在 X 上发表声明，自称是“执法领导者”，并表示其“市场诚信基础设施”标记了 Spagnuolo 的活动。该公司写道：“区块链交易是透明且可追踪的，不良行为者会留下足迹。”但并未说明参与投注的用户是否知晓这一点。
“We’re working with law enforcement on their investigation,” Google spokesperson Jaclyn Vazquez says in a statement to The Verge. “The employee accessed our marketing material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of our policies. We’ve placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action.” 谷歌发言人 Jaclyn Vazquez 在给 The Verge 的声明中表示：“我们正在配合执法部门进行调查。该员工使用所有员工均可访问的工具获取了我们的营销材料，但利用此类机密信息进行投注严重违反了我们的政策。我们已将该员工停职，并将采取适当的行动。”