A U.S. Army master sergeant from Fort Bragg was arrested after prosecutors say he turned classified intel on the planned capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro into nearly $410,000 of betting gains. Gannon Ken Van Dyke opened a Polymarket account on Dec. 26, 2025, and placed thirteen wagers that all paid off in the span of a month.

The indictment lists charges ranging from unlawful use of confidential information to wire fraud. Van Dyke allegedly funneled most of his winnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before moving them into a newly created online brokerage account, attempting to mask his identity in markets tied to Maduro and Venezuela during the critical period leading up to the operation.

The case underscores how prediction markets, once niche tools for forecasting, can become avenues for insider misuse. Polymarket’s platform allows users to bet on geopolitical events, a feature that now attracts scrutiny from regulators wary of military secrets leaking into public betting pools. This incident may prompt controls on military data access for market participants.

President Trump compared the soldier’s actions to “Pete Rose betting on his own team,” debate over the boundaries of insider trading in the armed forces. With prosecutors moving forward, the case may set a precedent for how the Department of Justice prosecutes future breaches involving classified operations and betting platforms and their impact on national security.