Google engineer charged with using insider info for $1.2M profit on Polymarket

A Google software engineer, Michele Spagnuolo, has been federally charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering for allegedly using confidential company information to gain approximately $1.2 million through bets on the prediction market platform Polymarket. Prosecutors assert that Spagnuolo, using the alias "AlphaRaccoon," accessed non-public internal Google data, specifically from a "Year in Search 2025" tool, to accurately predict top search trends before their public release. He was arrested in New York and has been released on a $2.25 million bond.

The charges stem from Spagnuolo's alleged activity between October and December 2025, during which he placed bets on which public figures would rank highest in Google's "Year in Search" report. Notably, he is accused of correctly predicting singer D4vd would be the most searched person, a wager that the market had initially assessed with very low odds. Google has stated it is cooperating with law enforcement and has placed Spagnuolo on leave, emphasizing that using confidential data for personal betting is a serious breach of company policy. Polymarket also indicated that its internal integrity systems flagged the suspicious trades and it collaborated with federal authorities on the investigation.

This case marks a significant development as it is reportedly one of the first federal criminal prosecutions to apply insider trading laws to activities on a decentralized prediction market platform.