WASHINGTON D.C. — The Justice Department last month charged U.S. Army Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke with using classified intelligence to place wagers on the timing of the Jan. 3 mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The 38-year-old has pleaded not guilty.

U.S. Special Operations forces captured Maduro on Jan. 3 and brought him to the United States to face drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges. Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of the Venezuela mission, according to the indictment.

The Justice Department alleges Van Dyke made a series of wagers totaling roughly $34,000 on the prediction market Polymarket, including six bets the day before the raid, and netted more than $400,000. According to the indictment, he withdrew his profits immediately and then tried to delete his betting account. Polymarket cooperated with law enforcement in the investigation. In the U.S., it is prohibited to place military bets on platforms like Polymarket.

Rob Schwartz, a private lawyer, said the case represents a new category of misconduct. "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.

"If you are a corporate executive, and you're privy to non-public business information, you go trade on that, that's insider trading. Everybody knows that. But the same thing exists in prediction markets, where this soldier is alleged to have traded," he said. "Exactly right. This is a new kind of insider trading."

An analysis by Anti-Corruption Data Collective examined Polymarket bets on military outcomes and found that long-shot wagers with less than 35% odds won more often than they lost. The group calculated a 52% success rate for military bets compared with a 7% success rate for sports bets. "It's alarming to see a culture around betting on war," said Michelle Kendler-Kretsch, a researcher at the Anti-Corruption Data Collective.

An analysis by Bubblemaps, a Paris-based data analytics firm that creates visualizations of Polymarket activity, identified nine accounts that collectively made $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military operations with a 98% win rate. The linked accounts made dozens of winning bets on specific dates of pivotal moments in the war with Iran, including the first U.S. strikes, the removal of Iran's supreme leader, and the announcement of a ceasefire.

Deebs, a former U.S. military officer, said government officials, military planners, intelligence analysts, and spouses can all be potential insiders in military betting. "There's so many people involved in the planning and the execution of a military operation," he said. "This is like winning the lottery multiple times, you know?"

A Defense Department source said there are dozens more insider trading cases under examination and described Van Dyke as a small fish.