Google employee charged with using confidential search data to make $1.2 million on Polymarket

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS
Updated 11:29 AM CDT, May 28, 2026
Comments 8

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. prosecutors slapped insider trading charges against a Google employee this week, alleging the software engineer used confidential company information to pocket more than $1.2 million from prediction market platform Polymarket with bets on search trends.

In a complaint unsealed in New York, authorities identified the employee as 36-year-old Michele Spagnuolo — an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland who has worked for Google since 2014. Under the online name “AlphaRaccoon,” they alleged, Spagnuolo used the company’s 2025 “Year in Search” data before it was published to enter Polymarket wagers about the most trending Googled people of last year.

This week’s charges “reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,” Jay Clayton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Wednesday. “Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted.”

Spagnuolo allegedly made new Polymarket trades as Google’s internal search data evolved, from October into December of last year. For example, per the complaint, Spagnuolo initially wagered that Kendrick Lamar — who headlined the 2025 Super Bowl halftime show — would top search trends for people last year. But after internal Google data showed that alt-pop singer D4vd was later leading the influx of searches, he placed new bets. D4vd, whose legal name is David Burke, was charged last month with murdering 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/google-employee-insider-trading-polymarket-0a16656cd72f1694bf16a781a5b73b8e

[sop]

1. Prediction market platforms have made insider trading possible for morons who don't understand the stock market.

[Smilo]

2. Now do the White House

& all this administration's crooks.

[Yousufi]

3. Google employee charged with using confidential search data to make $1.2 million on Polymarket

This is a report about a Google employee allegedly using confidential data to make money on Polymarket. The case is still an accusation and should be verified through official and reliable sources.

[mdbl]

4. All he has to do is split it with Pres Dump and he'll get a pardon.

[Karasu]

5. I swear this shit is all that's left of the American economy. Prediction markets (read: gambling,)

Ponzi schemes (ex. crypto), and AI companies incestuously propping each other up in ways that you aren't seeing anywhere else in the word, all because we supposedly have to "win" the AI "race" by building as many completely unregulated data centers as fucking possible.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

6. Are these "markets" even regulated?

[Bengus81]

9. Always remember, the SEC never did SHIT to Bernie Madoff,he turned himself in

They were warned and warned for decades and given proven stats of his con job and still let him roll.

[IronLionZion]

10. None of the big Wall St. firms would do business with him, they knew his returns were mathematically impossible

so he mostly screwed over charities, hospitals, foundations, etc. who didn't know any better.

[Prairie Gates]

7. These aren't "markets." They're betting apps

This guy got a hot tip about a horse. Knew a stable guy who told him the 2:1 favorite met had a visit from a veterinarian, etc.

Honestly, what sort of social utility (the alibi for so-called free markets) is produced by a bet on the top search term of a prior year? The Prediction Betting Apps are ridiculous.

This guy is being charged for one reason only: the people who are doing massive insider betting on these apps (to wit, the Trump circle) now see people losing confidence in the integrity of the apps. So, they have to put up a scapegoat to assure people that the apps have some kind of integrity. You have to have suckers on the wrong side of these bets, after all. This is the proverbial handing out of a speeding ticket at the Indy 500.

[nwduke]

8. Now do Trump

And his crooked family!