Google engineer disputes Polymarket insider trading charges

Michele Spagnuolo, a Google engineer based in Switzerland, is facing charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering following his arrest by U.S. authorities. Prosecutors allege that Spagnuolo, using the alias ‘AlphaRaccoon’, utilized non-public information to make trades on the decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket, resulting in profits exceeding $1.2 million.

One specific wager involved correctly predicting that the singer D4vd would be Google’s most-searched person of the year in 2025. Spagnuolo has been placed on leave from Google.

In a motion to dismiss the charges, Spagnuolo’s legal team argues that his activities were not regulated financial trades subject to the U.S. Commodities Exchange Act. Instead, they contend the wagers constituted international gambling, which they claim falls outside U.S. regulatory authority. The case highlights an ongoing legal debate regarding whether event contracts on prediction markets should be classified as regulated ‘swaps’ or as state-regulated gambling.