A US Army soldier was arrested on insider trading charges for making prediction-market bets on the timing of the military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke made a profit of approximately $410,000 by betting on Polymarket, and was convicted of unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions, the Justice Department announced yesterday.
“As alleged in the indictment, Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, known as ‘Operation Absolute Resolve,’ and Van Dyke used his access to classified information about that operation for personal gain,” the DOJ said.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke, a 38-year-old North Carolina resident stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, has been an active-duty soldier since 2008 and a master sergeant with the U.S. Army Special Forces since 2023. He was bound by nondisclosure agreements that prevented him from disclosing classified or sensitive military information.
Van Dyke reportedly began placing bets on January 3, about a week before Maduro’s capture. He was charged in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
“Van Dyke won his bets on those contracts,” the DOJ said, and “made a profit of approximately $409,881.” He later “directed most of his earnings to an offshore cryptocurrency vault before depositing it into a newly created online brokerage account,” and “took steps to conceal his identity as a trader in Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets,” the DOJ said.
Trump: It’s like “Pete Rose betting on his own team”
The DOJ described the stakes as follows:
As alleged, on or about December 26, 2025, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account, funded it, and began trading on Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets. In total, Van Dyke placed approximately 13 bets from December 27, 2025, through the evening of January 26. All of those votes took a “yes” position on “U.S. forces in Venezuela…” by January 31, 2026; “Maduro out…January 31, 2026”; “Will the US invade Venezuela by January 31”; Or “Trump to invoke war powers against Venezuela through January 31.” Van Dyke bet a total of approximately $33,034 on those outcomes while in possession of classified non-public information about Operation Absolute Resolve.
According to CNBC, President Trump was asked about Van Dyke at the White House on Thursday, and he compared the bet to “Pete Rose betting on his own team.” Trump was quoted as saying, “Pete Rose, they kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team.” “Now, if he bet against his own team, it wouldn’t be good, but he bet on his own team. I would look into it.”
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