Prosecutors said the Google employee wagered about $2.7 million between October and December 2025|Ryan Quick|CC BY 2.0
A Google software engineer faces fraud and money laundering charges after prosecutors accused him of using confidential company data to make $1.2 million on prediction-market bets.
Federal authorities said Michele Spagnuolo illegally accessed nonpublic Google search-trend data and used it to place bets on Polymarket under the account name “AlphaRaccoon.”
Prosecutors said he wagered about $2.7 million between October and December 2025 on contracts tied to Google’s Year in Search rankings.
Authorities alleged that the engineer knew in advance that rapper Kendrick Lamar and singer d4vd would rank among the most-searched people of the year. At the time, d4vd’s odds on Polymarket were close to zero, according to court records.
Google said the employee accessed internal marketing data through a company tool available to staff, but violated policy by using confidential information for betting. It has placed him on leave and said it is cooperating with investigators.
The case marks the second insider-trading prosecution linked to Polymarket in recent months as regulators increase scrutiny of prediction markets.
A Special Forces soldier was arrested and charged in April for allegedly using classified military information about Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro’s capture to earn more than $400,000 on Polymarket.