Google Engineer Charged in $1.2M Polymarket Insider Trading Case

Google employee Michele Spagnuolo has been charged with using insider information to wager on search-related markets at Polymarket. His account shows he had been wagering on the site since 2024 on a wide range of markets before maximizing his profits on the most searched people in 2025.

On Wednesday, the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New York unsealed an indictment against Spagnuolo, a Swiss resident. He has been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.

A Google spokesperson told CasinoBeats via email that Spagnuolo has been placed on leave as the company works with law enforcement on the investigation.

“We’re working with law enforcement on their investigation, the spokesperson said. “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. We’ve placed the employee on leave and will take the appropriate action.”

Polymarket Account Flagged As Suspicious

It is alleged that he is the owner of the Polymarket account AlphaRacoon, later renamed 0xafEe. The account was flagged as suspicious in December after it accurately predicted the most-searched people of 2025.

The Polymarket account shows a total profit of $929,251.44. The indictment says Spagnuolo risked $2,754,092 on search-related markets, generating a profit of $1.2 million.

Polymarket only appears to list markets where the user won and does not show any losses. In total, the account shows winning wagers of over $1.5 million.

The majority of Spagnuolo’s winnings came from wagering on various celebrities to appear in Google’s Most Searched People of the Year rankings.

He had access to confidential, nonpublic data in a folder marked in red with the label “Google Confidential”. He used this data to place the wagers between October last year and December, when the results were publicly announced, and the markets settled, according to the indictment.

“Michele Spagnuolo allegedly abused his elevated access to confidential trends to place bets with nonpublic information and receive more than one million dollars in unlawful profits,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr. 

Spagnuolo Hoovered Up Loose Liquidity

The majority of Spagnuolo’s winnings came from wagering on the most searched people, but he also profited from wagering on markets related to the release of Gemini, Google’s AI chatbot.

In addition, he wagered on a wide range of other events, including US military action in Venezuela and the capture of Nicolas Maduro. That market has also been the subject of an insider trading scandal, leading to the arrest of US soldier Ken Gannon Van Dyke.

In his role as a Web Security engineer at Google, it is unlikely Spagnuolo would have had any inside information on that market. Instead, he appears to have been willing to place high wagers on markets just before they settled, including:

• $1050 to win $100 on Maduro out in 2025
• $39,449.88 to win $94.27 on Abigail Spanberger’s margin of victory in the Virginia Governor race
• $2,805.06 to win $28.33 on the Bengals to beat the Steelers in November, 2025
• $4,699.87 to win $299.99 on Andrew Cuomo to finish 2nd in the NYC Mayoral election
• $25,739.86 to win $2,655.13 on Donald Trump to win the 2024 Presidential election

Those wagers all appear to have been placed just before the markets settled, and the result was almost inevitable.

Did Gambling Habit Fuel Insider Trading?

Some bets were higher risk, including a $52,638.15 wager on the Mariners to beat the Blue Jays last year, which won $35,268.21.

After the Trump wager, his next four wagers on Polymarket were all sports bets. He wagered a total of $75,638.15 across four matches in the MLB, college football, and NHL. All won, generating a profit of $47,268.21.

With these wagers, Spagnuolo clearly did not have insider knowledge because of his employment at Google. It points to a possible gambling habit that could have left him in debt had he been placing similar high-stakes wagers on other betting platforms.

Those bets were placed in October 2025. He placed four more sports bets on matches held on November 16, which he also won.

Given the prices, these appear to be in-play wagers. As he resides in Switzerland, the matches would have taken place in the early hours of the morning for Spagnuolo.

In his role as the lead of Agent & Web Observability in Google’s Information Security team, the 36-year-old likely commanded a high salary and could have been in a position to afford these kinds of stakes.

Spagnuolo Was Expert In Hacking and Stealing Passwords

Spagnuolo joined Google in 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile. He appears to have had a successful career at the company, working his way up to more senior roles.

He has also presented at several international conferences on web security and hacking. Before a presentation in Malaga, Spain, at the start of the year, he said he was hopeful of “inspiring the next generation of web hackers”.

He has also previously presented at the Global Conference on Money Laundering and Digital Currencies in Doha. If extradited to the US and convicted on the charges, including money laundering, he faces up to 50 years in federal prison.

CFTC Also Charges Spagnuolo

The CFTC also announced that the agency has filed a complaint against Spagnuolo. The prediction market regulator said it is seeking “restitution, disgorgement, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.”

The wagers, however, were placed on Polymarket’s international site, which is not officially regulated by the CFTC. Polymarket told CasinoBeats it had assisted in the investigation.

“Polymarket worked closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the CFTC, and is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States,” a spokesperson said via email.

CFTC chair Michael Selig also took the opportunity to reiterate that the organization is taking a tough stance on insider trading.

As I have said repeatedly, the Commission will not tolerate fraud, manipulation, or insider trading, regardless of the technology or platform that is used,” Selig said in a press release. “Today’s action further underscores our commitment to rooting out insider trading and promoting market integrity in prediction markets.”

Polymarket similarly warned that users can be traced, even when conducting transactions using cryptocurrencies.

“Blockchain trading is transparent, traceable, and bad actors leave footprints. We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement,” the company spokesperson added.

The CFTC and Polymarket have been under fire from lawmakers who claim they are not doing enough to prevent insider trading. Trump, however, signaled his full support for Selig this week and said he wants the US to lead the way in prediction markets. While beneficial in the short term, his endorsement may risk the future legality of the industry.

The indictment of Spagnuolo will also put further scrutiny on the industry, with critics alleging that prediction markets in their current form are ripe for corruption and insider trading.