Federal prosecutors in the U.S. have charged an employee of Google parent company Alphabet (NASDAQ: $GOOGL ) with fraud related to a bet he made on prediction market Polymarket.
Prosecutors allege that Michele Spagnuolo, a staff information security engineer at Google, made $1.2 million U.S. off of bets using insider information on Polymarket.
Prosecutors claim that Michele Spagnuolo used confidential information to place trades correctly betting that singer d4vd would be Google’s most searched person of 2025.
Spagnuolo has been charged with money laundering, commodities fraud, and wire fraud. He was arrested on May 27 in New York.
The Google employee reportedly had access to internal data systems that provided him access to confidential, non-public “Year in Search” data.
Google publicly announced its Year in Search 2025 results on Dec. 4 of last year. Soon after it did so, Spagnuolo’s Polymarket account was awarded $1.2 million U.S.
Spagnuolo has been released on a $2.25 million U.S. bond. He is also facing a civil case from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where he’s charged with insider trading.
Critics claim that prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket enable people to profit from insider trading and non-public information.
GOOGL stock has risen 23% this year to trade at $388.83 U.S. per share.
