U.S. Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was charged in April 2026 with using classified intelligence to place bets on the Venezuela mission. Special Operations forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026. Maduro was subsequently taken to the United States to face drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges.

Van Dyke, a 38-year-old Army master sergeant, was involved in the planning and execution of the Venezuela mission. The Justice Department alleges he made a series of wagers totaling approximately $34,000. These wagers, half a dozen of them, were reportedly placed the day before the raid on January 2, 2026. Van Dyke allegedly netted more than $400,000 from these wagers.

According to the indictment, Van Dyke immediately withdrew his profit and attempted to delete his betting account on Polymarket. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Polymarket stated it cooperated with law enforcement.

Rob Schwartz, a private lawyer in Washington who worked for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission until last year, commented on the allegations. "If the allegations are true, this is one of the worst betrayals of trust in this area that I can remember and possibly ever," Schwartz said. He added, "There is nothing to compare that to." Schwartz further stated that the alleged actions involve "classified intelligence that he knew about because he helped plan and to execute the mission." He drew a comparison to corporate insider trading, explaining, "If you are a corporate executive, and you're privy to non public-- business information, you go trade on that, that's insider trading." He concluded, "But the same thing exists in prediction markets, where this soldier is alleged to have traded."

Prediction markets, including Polymarket, allow wagers on the likelihood of future events. It is prohibited in the United States to make military bets on such platforms. Nicolas Vaiman, owner of the data analytics firm Bubblemaps in Paris, stated that nine connected Polymarket accounts collectively made $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military operations. Vaiman said these linked accounts had a 98% win rate and added that luck alone cannot account for such a high success rate. The linked accounts reportedly made numerous winning bets on the specific dates of pivotal moments in the war with Iran.

The charges against a U.S. Army master sergeant for allegedly using classified military intelligence for personal financial gain raise questions about the security of sensitive operational details and the expanding reach of betting markets into geopolitical events. With over a billion dollars reportedly staked online this year on military decisions and outcomes, the case brings attention to the need for regulatory oversight in this emerging area of online wagering.