The Anti-Corruption Data Collective recently submitted a formal petition to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to block Polymarket from hosting wagers on military conflicts.
The request follows the group's April 2026 report which identified a suspicious 52% win rate for "long shot" bets on defense markets. Casey Newton highlighted these figures on Hard Fork, noting that "a group called the Anti-Corruption Data Collective analyzed more than 400,000 prediction markets settled on Polymarket over the last five years, and they found that long shot bets related to military or defense had an average win rate of about 52%. Now, keep in mind, the average win rate on this platform is 14%."
While Newton treated the data as a glaring red flag for potential insider trading, the broader podcast ecosystem remains split on whether these markets provide valuable intelligence or are merely playgrounds for bad actors. With the CFTC now under pressure to act, all eyes are on whether regulators will prioritize market integrity over the "wisdom of the crowd" arguments often championed by prediction market advocates.
