Soldier won $410K in Polymarket bets on timing of Maduro capture, US alleges

A US Army soldier was arrested for insider trading after being accused of making prediction-market wagers on the timing of the military’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke made a profit of nearly $410,000 by making bets on Polymarket, and he was indicted on charges of unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction, the Department of Justice announced yesterday.

“As alleged in the indictment, Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution of the US military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, called ‘Operation Absolute Resolve,’ and Van Dyke used his access to classified information about that operation to personally profit,” the DOJ said.

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 US Army Special Forces since 2023, according to the indictment. He was bound by nondisclosure agreements forbidding him from revealing classified or sensitive military information.

Van Dyke allegedly started making bets about a week before the January 3 capture of Maduro. He was charged in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“Van Dyke won his wagers on those contracts,” and “profited approximately $409,881,” the DOJ said. He later “sent most of his proceeds to a foreign cryptocurrency vault before depositing them into a newly created online brokerage account,” and “took steps to conceal his identity as the trader in the Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets,” the DOJ said.

Trump: It’s like “Pete Rose betting on his own team”

The DOJ described the bets as follows:

As alleged, on or about Dec. 26, 2025, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account, funded it, and began trading on Maduro- and Venezuela-related markets. In total, Van Dyke made approximately 13 bets from Dec. 27, 2025, through the evening of Jan. 26. Those bets all took the “YES” position on “US Forces in Venezuela… by January 31, 2026”; “Maduro out by… January 31, 2026”; “Will the US invade Venezuela by… January 31,”; or “Trump invokes War Powers against Venezuela by… January 31.” Van Dyke bet a total of approximately $33,034 on those outcomes while in possession of classified nonpublic information about Operation Absolute Resolve.

President Trump was asked about Van Dyke at the White House on Thursday, and responded by comparing the wagers to “Pete Rose betting on his own team,” according to CNBC. “Pete Rose, they kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team,” Trump was quoted as saying. “Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team. I’ll look into it.”