The U.S. Justice Department has charged Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo with insider trading, claiming the employee used confidential business information to rake in $1.2 million on Polymarket. Spagnuolo, who went by the handle 'AlphaRaccoon' on the prediction platform, has been at Google for over 12 years - plenty of time to learn that some secrets are worth more than others.
'As alleged, Spagnuolo violated the duties he owed to his employer and used Google’s confidential business information to make more than $1.2 million in trading profits on Polymarket,' said Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in a statement. 'Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted.' Because nothing says 'integrity of our markets' like betting on which celebrity was most searched.
Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi let users wager on nearly anything, but insider trading remains a no-no - illegal, even. The Justice Department recently charged a U.S. Army soldier for allegedly using inside knowledge of the operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to make $400,000 on Polymarket. So if you're going to trade on classified info, at least aim higher than celebrity search data.
According to the complaint, Spagnuolo risked over $2.7 million on wagers related to Google’s 2025 'Year in Search' campaign, which reveals the year’s most popular searches. He allegedly accessed confidential internal data about the most-searched celebrities to inform his bets. Because when you have a decade-plus at Google, why not use your access to predict which star was Googled the most?
'Polymarket worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the CFTC, and is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States,' a Polymarket spokesperson told TechCrunch. 'Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints.' Not to mention digital fingerprints, but who's counting?
A Google spokesperson said the company is cooperating with law enforcement. '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,' Google said in an emailed statement. 'We’ve placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action.' So if you're Googling 'how to get rich quick,' maybe don't start with your employer's secret data.