Van Dyke is the first person to be charged with insider trading in the prediction markets in the United States. Lawmakers have been raising concerns for months about the high possibility that politicians and public servants could use non-public information to profit from trades on leading industry platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, which have grown in popularity over the past year.
The arrest comes just weeks after Justice Department prosecutors met with Polymarket about possible insider trading violations. In February, Israeli authorities arrested two civilians, an army reservist and a civilian, accused of leaking classified information by betting on Polymarket related to military operations. Polymarket’s primary rival Kalashi in the United States recently fined three politicians for breaking its insider trading rules, but it did not flag the violations for further enforcement to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency that oversees prediction markets.
After Van Dyke’s arrest became public, Polymarket posted a statement on social media saying it had “identified a user trading on classified government information” and “referred the matter to the DOJ and cooperated with their investigation.” The company declined to comment further.
According to court documents, Van Dyke has been an active duty US soldier since September 2008 and reached the level of master sergeant in 2023. At the time of the alleged trading activity, he was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and assigned to Army Special Operations Command Western Hemisphere Operations.
“I have been absolutely clear that anyone who engages in fraud, manipulation or insider trading in any of our markets will face the full force of the law,” CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in a statement. “The defendant was entrusted with classified information about U.S. operations and yet he took actions that endangered U.S. national security and endangered the lives of American service members.”
The complaint alleges that Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of Maduro’s arrest and that he knew he was not authorized to share non-public information about U.S. military operations. The complaint states that Van Dyke signed a nondisclosure agreement that prohibits him from disclosing sensitive or classified government information “by writing, word, conduct or otherwise.” The complaint also alleges that Van Dyke saved a screenshot to his Google account “displaying the results of an artificial intelligence query”, which details how US Special Forces maintain a number of classified files including “operational details that are not available to the public”.
On December 26, Van Dyke allegedly opened an account on Polymarket and withdrew approximately $35,000 from his bank account before transferring it to the cryptocurrency exchange.
The next day, Van Dyke reportedly made his first Venezuela-related trade on Polymarket, placing a little less than $100 on a “YES” contract that US troops would be in Venezuela by January 31, 2026. Prosecutors ultimately accused him of making 13 Venezuela-related transactions on the platform, seven of which – totaling hundreds of thousands of shares – on “YES” contracts for Maduro… through January 31, 2026. In other words, Van Dyke would allegedly stand to profit heavily if the Venezuelan leader is voted out of power by the end of the month.
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