A Polymarket user, called AlphaRaccoon, has caused controversy and gained major media attention as they allegedly netted over $1 million in 24 hours.
According to Forbes, the user has accurately placed bets on Google’s 2025 Year in Search rankings, with a near-perfect score of 22 out of 23 predictions correct. Some of the predictions were very granular and focused on rankings ahead of the search engine releasing the information.
The company releases these ‘Year in Search’ round-ups each year, summarizing trending searches, news, and even people. The Polymarket account holder gambled on selections like ‘Will Bianca Censori be the #1 search person on Google this year?’ as well as Pope Leo XIV and Donald Trump, and voted ‘Yes’ to ‘Will D4vd be the #1 searched person on Google this year’, which turned out to be correct.
$1.15M profit in 24 hours trading Google search markets.
Who is AlphaRaccoon? pic.twitter.com/ObOboqc7UE
— Polymarket Money (@PolymarketMoney) December 4, 2025
User AlphaRaccoon on Polymarket causes mayhem
The X (formerly Twitter) account, called Polymarket Money, which provides financial news and insights from Polymarket, posted the profit made in 24 hours and asked ‘Who is AlphaRaccoon?’
Many people responded to the account, with people asking the same question. While some praised the account with comments like ‘Omg that’s really massive W’ and ‘bro is grinding hard,’ some people have alleged he’s an insider.
The account has seen previous success, too, as it was in November 2025 when the trader allegedly earned over $150,000 by correctly guessing the release date of Google’s Gemini 3.0.
These comments and the media frenzy have come at a time when prediction markets are operating in a regulatory grey zone, with them still being relatively new. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, for example, regulates them as derivatives platforms, instead of securities exchanges.
While everything is unknown regarding the user, who could have simply guessed correctly, the rise of prediction markets could see similar situations arise.
Featured Image: AI-generated via Ideogram
