If you loggin to linkedin and have about 2mio views. US Court released full Name.
Google employee charged with using insider data to rig bets on Polymarket | Google | The Guardian
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https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1442621/dl
Has a lot more details (technically it’s not insider trading, and unclear if it can stick, and I thought polymarket wasn’t even operating in the US).
In the end seems pretty foolish tho.
Why not?
Crazy how much Information is shared. His biggest problem is that US Gov wants to take stand against such bets, and he could be the “best” Victim.
btw Switzerland does hand over suspects to the US, if they are no swiss citizens
Ok since insider trading isn’t really defined in US law, it might be.
In practice he was charged with commodities fraud, and who he defrauded is google not really the other market participants. (But that’s also the case in regular insider trading, you defraud your employer and its shareholders).
I don t think insider trading is limited to your own employer data: as long as you use privileged information to your own benefit that qualifies. E.g. you are the secretary of an attorney advising on a merger deal and you see secret documents stating the value of the deal that is way below current market cap and you start buying stocks of the target company. I guess this is a similar case here and I could imagine that upon starting working for google you have to sign documents stating that you cannot use any insider information ^^.
Greed is curse. If he had made only 2 of 10 winning bets and lose 40% of his total winnings he would fly under the radar.
Even then, is it worth risking that for 2-3y of google income?
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Does anyone understand the following? From justice.gov:
when the Polymarket markets regarding Google’s Year in Search resolved, the software released approximately 3,914,362 million USDC.e to the AlphaRaccoon Polymarket account.
According to the PDF, AlphaRaccoon was his Polymarket account.
USDC is a stablecoin. Therefore, 1 USDC is equal to 1 USD (minus FX fees). But I can’t wrap my head around the scale of “3,914,362 million USDC”. That would be several billion. Which can’t be right. So there’s something I’m missing. Is “3,914,362 million USDC” the same as…
- 3,914,362 million USD (= 3,914,362,000,000 USD)
- or 3,9 million USD (= 3,914,362 USD)?
3,9 million USD sounds more realistic, but then I don’t understand why The Guardian is talking only about 1,2 million USD.
I think that is common in every contract with data acess. I had once a penalty of 1 yearly salary, if I share information with outside.
Does this make all bets where you have an information edge a case of insider trading? Not sure if I like that idea.
The Google guy gets the sympathy vote from me. Much rather see DOJ go after the bigger more polished / connected fishes…
If you have the information because you work there (inside information), then yes. As far as I understand it, it’s the same as with stocks. In a situation like that, the bet is pointless.
Or to give an example: It’s like if I were to bet you on how many glasses you have in your kitchen cabinet. Since the bet runs over several days, you count all the glasses at home at the last bet day (inside information) and win the bet.
What would be allowed for me, however, is calculating how much you might have, compiling statistics, etc., or perhaps even looking through the window with binoculars.
I bet alot of polymarket users are very nervous right now
Is there already a Polymarket bet on this?
Yeah it’s 3.9M.
You need to subtract the bet amount from the gains
AlphaRaccoon account risked approximately $2,754,092 on approximately 25 Google Year in Search 2025 outcomes that the market treated as unlikely
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