A new study has concluded that 152 Polymarket wallets may have profited from access to secret information about military action, with other wallets copying the insiders' bets. The patterns raise red flags about foreign adversaries' potential exploitation of insiders' profit-seeking to anticipate American strikes. Released on Thursday by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective (ACDC), the 29-page report focuses on a particular species in the diverse prediction market ecosystem -- an "Orca," which ACDC describes as a wallet that makes targeted, long-shot bets in a manner differs from the behavior of high-volume, high-frequency, multi-market "Whales." Analysts also studied the corresponding behavior of "Bots," which are wallets that seem at least partially automated. To locate Orcas in the sea of data, ACDC looked at wallets that "place bets in a small number of markets and on very few topics, and have a high success rate (> 75%) for longshot bets (defined as more than $2500 wagered at 35 cents or less)." The researchers found that, where military event markets were concerned, Orcas would bet first, with Whales and Bots following in their wakes. They noted that Orcas snared the biggest percentage returns, but Whales and Bots -- putting down more money -- would rake in the biggest actual profits. A cohort of 152 Orcas betting on military actions won $8 million and posted a sparkling 97.2% win rate on events where the market had the likelihood at 35% or less when the Orcas stepped up to wager. The report highlighted several Orca attributes that suggest they're insiders: "More than half of Orcas made their first longshot bet within two days of creating an account on Polymarket, a possible sign they joined specifically to trade on privileged information. Orcas wager more per longshot bet, despite the risks and low probabilities, and longshots dominate their total activity. Orcas betting on military markets are less crypto-native and prefer cashing out into fiat currency."The report includes a case study on an Orca that wagered on action against Iran. "0x88e6" placed its first longshot bet on the very day of America's June airstrike on Iran's Fordow nuclear complex. It made multiple bets that day, with the last one squeezed in just an hour before the bombs dropped. With some of the bets priced as low as 5 cents, 0x88e6 won more than $20,000 for the strike. It went on to win more than $13,000 on Fordow having been deemed successfully "destroyed." Special Forces MSGT Gannon Van Dyke was arrested after winning $400,000 betting on the operation to seize Venezuela's president (via Business Insider)ACDC's analysts observed Whales and Bots swooping in with heftier capital to mimic Orca bets: When an Orca bet on U.S. military action in Iran hours before the June ​2025 strikes...a Bot and a ​Whale made copycat wagers of $200,000 and $100,000, respectively. ⁠Similar Orca bets before February U.S.-Israeli air strikes on Tehran also appeared to spark a flurry of first-time long-shot bets by Bots and Whales wagering on the same outcome, the research found. -- Reuters"Most people vastly underestimate how observable unusual betting activity actually is on Polymarket. It's all right ​there on the internet, and we can see clear signs that big traders and bots are copying potential insider trades," ACDC co-founder ​David Szakonyi told Reuters. "It would be ⁠naive to think foreign-intelligence agencies aren't monitoring these markets." “We spotted nine Polymarket accounts, all connected, who made, collectively,$2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military operations,” says Nicolas Vaiman, co-founder of the small data analytics firm Bubblemaps.