The FBI says a Google engineer used an internal investigation to win $1.2M on Polymarket

“We are working with the police in their investigation,” Google said in a statement provided to Ars. “The employee obtained our promotional material using a tool available to all employees, but using such confidential information for betting is a serious violation of our policy.

Between October 15, 2025, and December 4, 2025, “Spagnuolo’s AlphaRaccoon account is at risk of approximately $2,754,092 for approximately 25 Google search results in Search 2025 that the market considered impossible,” the US complaint said.

Spagnuolo’s bets included $937,688 on the “No” side of “Will Bianca Censori be #1 searched on Google this year?”; $613,587 for the “No” part of “Will Pope Leo XIV be the #1 person searched on Google this year?”; $509,149 for the “No” part of “Will Donald Trump be the #1 person searched on Google this year?”; and $171,612 on the “No” side of “Will Donald Trump enter Google’s Top 5 Most Searched People in 2025?”

The AlphaRaccoon account also made bets related to Zohran Mamdani, Kendrick Lamar, Jimmy Kimmel, d4vd, Sydney Sweeney, Tyler Robinson, Charlie Kirk, Luigi Mangione, Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, Squid Gamesand Andy Byron. AlphaRaccoon’s winning bets have not been recognized by people watching the prediction markets.

“In early December 2025, after the Discord and X communities discussed AlphaRaccoon, and assumed that the user was a Google Insider, the username ‘AlphaRaccoon’ was removed from the Polymarket account, and the username was restored to an alphanumeric wallet address,” he complained in the US.

Spagnuolo won bets “with great precision”

Spagnuolo too a common defendant and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The civil and civil complaints were filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Spagnuolo made at least 23 bets on the “Yes” or “No” fields and won “very accurately,” the CFTC said against Spagnuolo.