A serving United States Army soldier has been charged with exploiting classified military intelligence to place bets on a prediction market platform, netting more than $400,000 from wagers tied to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment on Thursday identifying the soldier as Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was based at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and has been on active duty since 2008. He faces three counts of violating the Commodity Exchange Act, one count of wire fraud, and one count of conducting an unlawful monetary transaction — charges that carry a combined maximum sentence of up to 60 years in prison.
According to prosecutors, Van Dyke was directly involved in the planning and execution of what the military called Operation Absolute Resolve — the January 3 raid that resulted in the abduction and imprisonment of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Beginning around December 26, 2025, Van Dyke created an account on Polymarket, a popular online prediction market where users bet real money on real-world outcomes, using a virtual private network (VPN) to disguise his location. Over the following days, he placed 13 bets on scenarios including US forces entering Venezuela, Maduro being removed from office, and President Trump invoking war powers against the country. His wagers escalated sharply in the days before the operation, with individual bets reaching over $7,000. After pocketing roughly $400,000 in winnings, he transferred much of the money to a foreign cryptocurrency account and contacted Polymarket to delete his profile on January 6. The indictment also references a photograph Van Dyke allegedly sent to a personal account in the early hours of January 3, showing him aboard a vessel in uniform and carrying a weapon alongside three other soldiers.
The case has landed amid a broader controversy over insider trading on prediction markets in the United States. Prediction markets — platforms that allow users to bet on the outcomes of political, military, and other real-world events — expanded significantly during the second Trump administration after regulatory hurdles were eased. Large and well-timed wagers placed before the Venezuela operation had already attracted media attention, with reports circulating about a so-called "mystery trader" who scored an outsized windfall. Thursday's indictment identifies Van Dyke as that individual. Separately, the prediction platform Kalshi fined and suspended three users on Wednesday who were allegedly candidates in the 2026 midterm elections and had bet on the outcomes of their own races.
Officials across the government condemned Van Dyke's alleged conduct. "Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain," said acting attorney general Todd Blanche. FBI assistant director James C. Barnacle Jr. called the actions a betrayal of Van Dyke's fellow soldiers. Polymarket, for its part, stated that it had referred the user to the Justice Department and described the arrest as proof that "the system works." When asked about the case in the Oval Office, President Trump said he was not familiar with the details but drew an analogy to the late baseball player Pete Rose, who was banned from the sport for gambling: "That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team."
The arrest is being described by the Justice Department as potentially the first criminal case involving the use of classified government information in a prediction market context. It has intensified calls from lawmakers for legislation restricting government employees from trading on sensitive knowledge, particularly as questions continue to swirl over large bets placed ahead of the US military strikes on Iran.