Prosecutors say that Spagnuolo, trading under the username AlphaRaccoon, reportedly wagered $2.7 million across 25 separate bets — and walked away with $1.2 million in profit. He bet that Pope Leo XIV and Bianca Censori, who married Kanye West, would not take the top spot, but that rapper D4vd would.
“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 spokesperson Jaclyn Vazquez told NPR.
Prediction markets face continued scrutiny
This isn’t the first time prediction market bets have resulted in federal charges. Last month, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier was charged with using classified information about the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to pocket more than $400,000 on Polymarket.
In April, Kalshi suspended three accounts that it believed belonged to congressional candidates Ezekiel Enriquez in Texas, Matt Klein in Minnesota, and Mark Moran in Virginia, who were bidding on their own races.
Moran allegedly placed a bet on himself under the event contract, “Who will run for public office this year?” before announcing his candidacy. Moran claimed the bet was intentional to see if he would be caught. But Bobby DeNault, Kalshi’s Head of Enforcement, called the candidates’ wagers “political insider trading” in a company press release, and he said they violated the platform’s rules.
DeNault has reported that his team scours social media, employment records, and other public data, such as the FTC’s campaign data lists, and uses it to prevent insider trading.
“Those trigger flags in our systems, and we’ve prevented hundreds of cases of insider trading based on that,” DeNault told ABC.
These cases shine an uncomfortable spotlight on an industry that has exploded in popularity. Combined monthly global trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket has increased from less than $5 billion in September 2025 to roughly $24 billion in April 2026. For context, that’s nearly double what legal sportsbooks handle each month in the U.S.
The rise of prediction market platforms raises a question for everyday investors: Are they a legitimate investment opportunity?
