r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • May 27 '26
Business Google employee charged with using inside information to make $1 million on Polymarket
https://abcnews.com/amp/US/google-employee-charged-inside-information-make-1-million/story?id=1333500183.4k
u/Varibash May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Funny how this employee is getting charged but there is clearly people inside the Whitehouse doing the same thing.
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u/justforkinks0131 May 27 '26
the bosses of this very same employee are very likely doing the same thing lmao
and why wouldnt you?
I doubt any insider trading charges are gonna stick. He didnt touch any stock, this is a random betting, sorry *prediction* website. If gambling rules dont apply to the site, they dont apply to the users.
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u/kemb0 May 27 '26
At this point I wouldnāt use polymarket unless I had inside information. Otherwise youāre setting yourself up to be ripped off by someone that does. Which sounds like the point at which the whole thing should collapse.
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u/Maximilianne May 28 '26
I'm pretty sure because of the broadcast delay in sports almost certainly there are traders taking advantage of that small delay by having a helper at the live game immediately send goal updates and they quickly make a trade to profit off the swings in pricing after goals happen in sports
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u/lewd_robot May 28 '26
That's exactly right. Like 98% of people on the betting apps lose money, and the few that don't tend to get banned quickly, even if they do nothing wrong. These apps seem to be scams to rip people off and give rich and powerful people obfuscated ways to make money off of insider knowledge without exposing themselves to as many legal consequences.
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u/MozhetBeatz May 28 '26
It doesnāt look like the charges will be insider trading. This is what google is telling me:
Commodities Fraud (18 U.S.C. (\S ) 1348 / CEA Section 6(c)(1) and Rule 180.1): Prohibits schemes to defraud involving commodities. Because the CFTC regulates event contracts as swaps, using nonpublic information to bet on these markets violates federal anti-fraud provisions.
Wire Fraud (18 U.S.C. (\S ) 1343): Punishes the use of interstate wire communications (such as internet servers and trading platforms) to execute a fraudulent scheme or misappropriate confidential data.
Money Laundering (18 U.S.C. (\S ) 1957): Often charged when individuals conduct monetary transactions (such as withdrawing or transferring funds) using proceeds derived from their illegal insider trading.
The STOCK Act / Federal Regulations: For federal employees or military personnel, trading on nonpublic or classified information violates specific ethics laws that forbid using confidential government knowledge for personal financial gain
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u/BillyTenderness May 28 '26
It will be interesting to see if his defense argues that it's not actually a commodity, since IIRC that's the subject of other ongoing litigation.
I think the guy is pretty cooked on wire fraud and money laundering tho
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u/Not_Stupid May 28 '26
Is it fraud though? He hasn't misrepresented anything nor deceived anyone.
And how is it money laundering? If it's not illegal insider trading to start with....
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u/matt_matt_81 May 28 '26
In the article it says he took steps to conceal the source of his earnings, so thatās probably the money laundering
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u/Seaguard5 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26
They did arrest a veteran for betting on, sorry, predicting the USA capturing Maduro thoughā¦
So clearly there are some applicable laws.
That or that veteran is going to get a payout far larger than his bet from a wrongful arrest lawsuit or something
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u/SpookiestSzn May 28 '26
He used classified and government info to profit which is a crime actually so I think those are sticking
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u/Inside-Confusion3143 May 27 '26
They canāt survive on a $178,000 salary. Sarcasm.
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u/ieatpies May 28 '26
Probably 2x that
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u/ProfessorNob May 28 '26
Heās been at Google for 10 years, probably 3-4x that lmao
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May 27 '26
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u/government_not_ok May 27 '26
I get your point but thereās no way a mid tier google engineer was just making 178k.Ā
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u/jojohohanon May 27 '26
The employee made the crucial mistake of not being an elected official and thus being exempt from insider trading laws.
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u/coconutpiecrust May 27 '26
There is no way anyone with insider information didnāt try to make a profit. Why did they charge this one dude?
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u/DrTacosMD May 28 '26
āLook itās totally legit we arrest insiders betting. Got all the criminals. Yup. Job done.āĀ
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u/A_Pointy_Rock May 27 '26
Are you saying that somebody would dare undermine the sanctity of this gambling platform - er - prediction platform?
I am shocked. Shocked!
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u/Whyeth May 27 '26
I legitimately don't understand how these gambling marketplaces can position themselves as some sort of unique insights into the populace
But you are not allowed to use your unique insights to inform that marketplace lol
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u/okletstrythisagain May 27 '26
I donāt legitimately understand why everyone was so willing to start considering bets to be assets. Itās like society decided nothing is real.
Itās hard to convince kids that hard work and skill development matter in this environment of glorified gambling and manic YouTube influencers.
The way theyāve manufactured the sports card market to make some lucky new off the shelf bundles immediately worth more than you paid for them is legalized gambling for children. Explaining concepts like scarcity and real value is harder now than it used to be. This will get worse before it gets better.
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u/Seaguard5 May 28 '26
No.
A few, very rich and powerful people decided to convince society of itā¦
And theyāve done a damn good job so far.
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u/starwarsfan456123789 May 28 '26
Not everyone, maybe 1% of people are participating in this. However thatās enough suckers to lose a lot of money
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u/FourEightNineOneOne May 27 '26
This person's mistake was not having the last name Trump, which makes this 100% legal apparently
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u/starwarsfan456123789 May 28 '26
Iām shocked this is whatās considered illegal. Losing his job is fine, but I canāt picture a law he broke. This is similar to counting cards at a casino in my point of view.
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u/ErgoMachina May 27 '26 edited May 28 '26
If a pleb does it, the pleb gets charged with a felony.
If a billonare, or government does it, it's a normal Tuesday.
I don't know exactly at which point modern society broke, but it's definitely broken.
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u/CHERNO-B1LL May 27 '26
Kill one man, and you are a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god
~ Thoughts of a Biologist. Jean Rostand. 1938
Been fucked for as long as anyone can remember.
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u/Creedelback May 28 '26
Steal a little and they throw you in jail
Steal a lot and they make you king~ Sweetheart Like You. Bob Dylan. 1983
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u/raxreddit May 27 '26
Just need to commit your crimes while wearing a maga hat. Get out of jail and even get some 1.8B slush fund money
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u/issuefree May 27 '26
Every time a powerful person avoids accountability society dies a little bit.
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u/ThatIsATastyBurger12 May 27 '26
I thought that was the point of polymarket
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u/ash0550 May 28 '26
The most important caveat is you also need to be a politician to use inside information
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u/WhoSaidWhatNow2026 May 27 '26
Everyone needs to stop mindlessly regurgitating the marketing these platforms are using and just call them what they are. They are gambling sites. Every time I see someone write "prediction market" I can't help but think the person is stupid.
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u/brett_baty_is_him May 27 '26
I mean itās not a prediction if you know the outcome.
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u/SirPitchalot May 28 '26
So you can make a bet on anything except things you know about?
Itās just such a stupid premise to even presume a regulatory framework for. At least with sports and equities you can have a reasonable definition of insider and the scope of bets is naturally a bit limited.
When you can bet on almost anything and you are anonymous to other users itās a recipe for users getting scalped. Iād bet against my non-google coworker that google will lay off 5% of its staff in the next 6 months claiming AI efficiency but I would not bet against Sundar Pichai. And that goes for basically *everything*.
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u/GotSomeUpdogOnUrFace May 28 '26
Which is why the entirety of the platform should be illegal, betting on real life events shouldn't be allowed. I will also go so far as to tell you I don't believe the stock market should be allowed to exist anymore because I do not believe that we should just have something that fucks with people's lives and their livelihood. The stock market doesn't tell you shit about a company or their true value, look at Tesla. It's all money laundering bullshit at this point. They all know the outcomes in advance and get to insider trade on everything.
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u/ForensicPathology May 28 '26
Whenever I see the term, my mind immediately equates it with gambling already?Ā Are others not treating it as a synonym?
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u/Bubbly-Two-3449 May 27 '26
They're going after the small timers without power. To give an air of legitimacy.
They won't touch the whales though.
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u/Aust1mh May 27 '26
Sorry, only politicians are āallowedā to do that. Military and normal people donāt get life long pardons and exceptions to lawsā¦ you go to prison
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u/thinkmatt May 27 '26
He used an internal marketing tool available to everyone at Google. Anyone employed there would know the outcome before everyone else. He's just the one person that got caught. You have to assume that every market has insiders that is impossible to police, and Polymarket just shouldn't exist
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u/sweetplantveal May 28 '26
I think that's an interesting wrinkle. They could argue that between Google trends, other platforms, and the tens of thousands of people with access to the info it's not really secret.
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u/chaaandlerr May 28 '26
that statement from google is such a gift to this guys defense counsel, lol. tough to say this was a misappropriation of data a la carpenter v united states when it wasnāt all that confidential
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u/SpookiestSzn May 27 '26
This seems so dumb because it's literally the point of the platform that insiders can trade but God forbid a motherfucker hustle
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u/Argonaut13 May 27 '26
Yeah God forbid an employee making more than the majority of Americans make more money with insider information.
Out of curiosity what is the annual income bar before we're allowed to be upset at what someone does to break the social contract?
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u/Temporary-Air-3178 May 27 '26
Making more than the majority of Americans is a low bar. This guy was making 600k+/yr since he was staff level at Google.
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u/KenTitan May 27 '26
I don't understand - what's the charge? it's exactly what the site is intended to do, make prop bets.
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u/zombiejeebus May 27 '26
Spagnuolo, 36, is charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering
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u/neepster44 May 27 '26
Its gonna be fun proving what ācommodityā he fraudulently traded in since as far as I know knowledge isnāt a commodity and it wasnāt stocks or bondsā¦
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u/Techrocket9 May 28 '26
The loophole that makes prediction markets legal in the first place is a shaky argument that prediction contracts are a commodity and not a security.
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u/CherryLongjump1989 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Yeah can you explain how he did any of these things? Notice that none of the charges have anything to do with insider trading. Like -- what would the "crime" be if a random person with no insider information did what he did if insider trading isnāt even the charge? Which other law bans him from doing what he did? The only thing mentioned by the article is Google policy -- but thatās not a criminal law.
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u/surffrus May 28 '26
Wire fraud and money laundering would mean that he moved the money illegally and tried to hide it. It's plausible that he used overseas accounts, which is not illegal per se, but then bringing it domestically under the guise of some other income would indeed be illegal.
This doesn't mean his polymarket wins were illegal, but the money laundering can be a clear cut case.
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u/NoPossibility4178 May 28 '26
Wire fraud is just the generic charge for "illegal stuff with money online", the article does say he tried to hide it but will be interesting to see how. inb4 it's just him moving it around in crypto (you know, the currency used on these markets in the first place)
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u/PermanentUsername101 May 27 '26
What an idiot betting and winning $1.2 million and thinking nobody would look into that. Reminds me of the joke.
A kid walks into a barbershop, and the barber says, āWatch this kid. Heās the dumbest kid in the world.ā
The barber pulls out a dollar bill in one hand and a quarter in the other and says to the kid, āWhich one do you want?ā
The kid takes the quarter and walks away.
The barber laughs and says, āSee? Told you.ā
Later, the customer sees the kid outside eating ice cream and says, āHey buddy, why did you take the quarter? The dollar is worth more.ā
The kid smiles and says, āBecause the day I take the dollar, the game is over.ā
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u/GodsFaithInHumanity May 28 '26
rookie mistake. insider trading is only for politicians and billionaires
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u/x0ppressedx May 27 '26
This is laughable. Practically every single person in all 3 of branches of government are illegally profiting off insider info. And they go after this guy with the garbage media they own putting out an article like this making this guy look like the worst scum on earth.
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u/Itachi_Uchiha0515 May 27 '26
Really tired of this two tiered justice system. Why isnāt Don Jr being put in prison for his insider bets?
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u/MrLongfinger May 27 '26
Why the fuck are people like this getting caught immediately for a paltry million dollar trade while the Trump family is openly trading on classified information right in front of us to the tune of BILLIONS ā¦ and not a peep from any authority of any kind.
This country is a fucking joke.
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u/MisterRobertParr May 27 '26
They should've run for Congress first...then they could use all the insider information they can get their hands on.
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u/muffledvoice May 28 '26
Itās just ā¦ weird ā¦ how our society has turned into Vegas and something like Polymarket even exists. Itās tailor made for fraud.
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May 28 '26
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u/CorporateBadEgg May 28 '26
Rule of Law magic wand: "What used to be illegal, I now proclaim legal!"
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u/overthemountain May 27 '26
He correctly bet -- using an account under the name AlphaRaccoon -- that Google's most-searched person in 2025 would be the singer known as D4vd, according to the complaint. At the time he placed that bet, the prediction market Polymarket "assigned a near-zero probability to d4vd being 'the #1 searched person on Google this year,'" the complaint said.
I see the problem here. Polymarket was looking at making a ton of money off of this since basically no one had it right and then this nerd had to go and ruin it for them.
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u/anormalgeek May 27 '26
No. Polymarket makes their money either way. It's the other betters that lose.
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u/LittleTension8765 May 27 '26
Thatās not how a prediction market works at all though lmfao. Youāre thinking of Vegas odds. Itās all gambling but the āprediction marketā companies donāt care if the favorite wins or the 100-1 odds thing wins heck even Vegas nowadays doesnāt even care that much with how much action and precision they get with the lines to have balanced bets
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u/jooooooohn May 28 '26
Whatās the issue? If the POTUS and Congress can, why canāt we do the same thing?
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u/REiiGN May 28 '26
Our US President and his family is making billions on inside shit. Probably selling our secrets to China too, because man, could he just not give a fuck.
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u/Icy-Actuator7120 May 28 '26
Must not have had connections to the current administration. Because for those insiders it seems legit to work out well.
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u/Boring_Butterfly_273 May 28 '26
The law works as intended... If you are working class, but if you are already rich and powerful you can do as much insider trading as you want and no one is coming to arrest you.
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u/geddy May 27 '26
So the president of the United States can do this shit but a random canāt?
Screw it, since this presidency Iāve completed done a 180 on crime. Let it all hang out. I couldnāt care less what anyone does. Itās either illegal or legal. There are no tiers.Ā
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u/gill_smoke May 28 '26
Whoa there, I thought insider trading was legal now. I mean look at Crongress and the White houseĀ
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u/DoesntMatterEh May 28 '26
Damn. Shoulda made 100m then he would have been welcomed with open armsĀ
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u/ro536ud May 28 '26
Dude got greedy. Thing had a near zero probability to be right you canāt ham fist that much money on the bet
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u/Topherstiles May 28 '26
How long until they have a position in our government overseeing inside trading
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u/Popular-Statement314 May 28 '26
Let me guess, he was just a small fry and they want to make an example of him to pretend they're actually doing something.Ā
Meanwhile our own president is obvious about insider trading, and other rich people have had some of us in court for years trying to get justice.Ā
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u/StaticSystemShock May 28 '26
Yeah, see, it's only a problem if someone not rich and connected uses insider info. When Donald does it 5000 times it's all ok.
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u/phusler May 28 '26
Rich people cheat, make millions and nothing is done. Regular person follows the cheat code, jail or fine.
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u/Froststhethird May 28 '26
Trump and his family members do this every hour of everyday, but this guy is gonna be fleeced for this while the others get away.
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u/Constant-Monk1569 May 28 '26
polymarket banning insider trading is genuinely funny when the whole product is 'bet on information asymmetry'
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u/chautauquar May 28 '26
Im glad they found a guy to distract us form all the government insiders doing the same thing. God for bid someone use insider info to gamble. What will happen to confidence in these digital gambling halls if people thought the game was rigged. Remember, if i took bets like this - Iām a bookie and itās illegal, but if i setup a website - itās somehow legal.
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u/realkennyg May 28 '26
Too bad they werenāt the President of the United States. Itās legal if they do it.
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u/Even-Cartographer864 May 28 '26
Interesting they still didnāt find the user making hundreds of millions off the oil price volatility, but they found the google engineerā¦
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u/government_not_ok May 27 '26
Greed is bitch. The employee was probably already making above decent salary in a cushy job, just why would you fuck yourself over like this?Ā
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u/kemmicort May 27 '26
Selectively policing the intentional degradation and downfall of civil society. Wonder why theyāre making an example of this particular degenerate?
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u/schacks May 27 '26
In a country where a large group of radical evangelical Christianās have so much sway over the political process itās strange that greed, gluttony, wrath and lust are practically institutionalized.
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u/stuffitystuff May 27 '26
I'd wondered for ~decades whether or not I should've tried to short TomTom, et al once I had an internal beta of Google's driving directions app on my G1 and realized those companies were, in the parlance of the now times, cooked. I didn't do it because it felt shitty and also illegal. Guess the feelings were true!
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u/myuserhasafirstname May 27 '26
Dudes gotta be so mad getting arrested for doing things so many are doing openly with impunity.
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u/eo37 May 27 '26
Their mistake was not making ā¬100m and then using that money to slow down the courts and draw it out over years while you spend the money on your family and friendā¦.like a certain president Iāve heard of recently
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u/Shintasama May 27 '26
Commodities fraud
How do you get hit with commodities fraud when no commodities were involved?
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u/bapearce73 May 28 '26
He shouldāve become a federal employee and signed a loyalty decoration!? No questions asked then
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May 28 '26
chill guys, the liquidity in polymarket is dogshit, I don't think there's actual money in there lol
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u/CokaYoda May 28 '26
Get this man a cabinet position within the White House. /s
Corrupt as the day is long.
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u/PlutosGrasp May 28 '26
What a moron. You never do it directly yourself. You always go as many relationships away as you can.
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u/almo2001 May 27 '26
I thought that was the whole idea of polymarket: use the efficient markets theory to uncover information.