Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a soldier stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, helped plan and execute Operation Absolute Resolve, a daring mission in which the U.S. Army captured former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. However, his superiors were unaware that Van Dyke was not only involved in the kidnapping: he had also secretly placed 13 bets on the Polymarket prediction exchange that the US would invade or Maduro would be captured before January 31st.
Van Dyke’s bets earned him $409,881, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, but now the soldier’s bets have earned him something else: a series of insider trading-related criminal charges that carry a decade-long prison sentence.
“Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly betrayed his comrades by using classified information for his own financial gain,” said FBI Assistant Director James C. Barnacle Jr., in a statement Announcement of charges that included unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodity fraud, wire fraud and conducting an unlawful monetary transaction.
According to the Justice Department, Van Dyke used classified information obtained while planning the mission to place his successful bets. He did so despite having signed nondisclosure agreements prohibiting him from disclosing sensitive information related to military operations.
Polymarket is a platform where users take positions in so-called event contracts, which offer changing odds on a variety of real-world scenarios, from elections to sports games to weather, and where users take “yes” or “no” positions on the contract. In the case of Van Dyke’s bets, he took the yes position on bets such as “US forces in Venezuela… by January 31, 2026,” “Maduro out by… January 31, 2026,” “Will the US invade Venezuela by… January 31,” and “Trump invokes war powers against Venezuela by… January 31.”
In the days following Maduro’s capture, a number of reports appeared in the press highlighting the unusual bets. In response, Van Dyke attempted to cover his tracks by deleting his Polymarket account and changing the email account linked to a cryptocurrency exchange where he had originally parked his profits.
As prediction markets become more popular, reports of insider trading are increasing. In February, for example, Polymarket’s main competitor Kalshi announced that it had blocked an employee of Mr. Beast who had made bets based on inside information related to his job, and this week the company announced that it had done the same for several political candidates who had bet on their races.
