One Polymarket wallet pocketed nearly $500,000 betting on the June 2025 US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities in the hours before it happened.

A new report says it was not an isolated case.

The Anti-Corruption Data Collective reviewed all 435,672 markets settled on Polymarket between January 2021 and mid-March 2026, covering $54.4 billion in wagers. It found low-probability bets in war markets win at more than triple the rate prices suggest they should.

War Markets Are The Outlier

Longshot bets, defined by ACDC as wagers of $2,500 or more at prices of 35 cents or lower, win 14% of the time across all Polymarket categories. In military and defense markets, the win rate climbs to 51.8%.

Political markets overall, including elections and politician speech, sit closer to 25%.

Roughly $35 million has been wagered on winning longshot bets in political markets since 2021. About $25 million of that came in the first 10 weeks of 2026 alone, exceeding the entire 2025 total.

The Iran Strike Receipt

Day-specific markets for the Thursday and Friday before the Saturday strike saw almost no longshot activity. The Saturday, Sunday and Monday markets logged 19 longshot bets totaling $164,292, heavily concentrated in the hours before the strike.

Eight wallets cleared roughly $1.8 million in combined profit. Four of them posted win rates above 99% and sold less than 3% of their positions before the markets resolved, a pattern consistent with traders confident in the outcome.

The operation relied on decoy bombers and stealth aircraft. Public OSINT signals were thin.

Why The Ticker Risk Is Real

ACDC’s recommendations include forcing Polymarket to collect government ID, mirroring rival Kalshi’s existing setup. The report also backs the BETS OFF Act, which would ban wagers on war and government actions outright.

Pressure is already building from multiple directions. Manhattan’s top fraud prosecutors met with Polymarket last month to discuss whether Iran strike trades may have violated federal insider trading laws.

Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District and former SEC chairman, has warned criminal cases involving prediction market activity are coming. House Democrats separately pressed the CFTC this month over its inaction on offshore war bets.

A ban on the high-risk categories ACDC flagged would extend well beyond Polymarket.

Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) and Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) distribute Kalshi contracts, while Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) owns exclusive rights to Polymarket’s institutional data feed. DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG) and Flutter Entertainment (NYSE:FLUT) would benefit if volume migrates back to licensed sportsbooks.

Polymarket did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

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