Nine wallets, a 98% win rate and more than $2.4 million in profit, all from bets on US military operations against Iran. Analytics firms Bubblemaps and Polysights flagged the cluster on Polymarket, and federal investigators have taken an interest.
Polymarket has referred more than 90 accounts to law enforcement and passed along details on over 315 wallets, according to Crypto Briefing. The platform became a cultural phenomenon during the 2024 election cycle. It now sits at the center of a fast-growing insider trading inquiry.
The first federal case of its kind came on April 23, 2026. US Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke was charged with using classified information to bet on Polymarket’s geopolitics contracts. According to the charges, he made about $410,000.
The money at stake is large. The geopolitics category passed $5 billion in trading volume for the year by mid-June 2026, and Iran-related contracts alone drew more than $2 billion in the first four months.
How the wallets were caught
Polymarket runs mainly on the Polygon blockchain and settles in stablecoin. Every transaction is public, which is how analysts spotted the pattern. The catch is that wallet addresses are pseudonymous. One person can open several accounts and hide who is behind the trades.
Congress has taken notice. A New York Times investigation in mid-2026 was followed by congressional probes, and a House Oversight investigation launched in May 2026 is asking for records on how Polymarket verifies identities and detects trading anomalies.
The company has partnered with Chainalysis to strengthen its on-chain surveillance. It has also tightened its rules against insider trading and stepped up monitoring.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has brought insider trading charges involving event contracts, which expands its enforcement into prediction markets. The Van Dyke prosecution adds the Justice Department, and with it criminal enforcement.
