The DOJ charged a U.S. Army soldier after he allegedly made over $400,000 on a bet on Polymarket using classified intel.
A U.S. Army soldier is now at the center of one of the first major criminal cases tying prediction markets to insider trading.
In a Thursday, April 23 press release, prosecutors said the soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, used “classified information” to place a bet on Polymarket and turned roughly $33,000 into about $409,881. As authorities framed it, the soldier used “highly sensitive information for personal financial gain.”
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Inside Van Dyke’s Bet on Polymarket
According to the indictment, Van Dyke placed around 13 bets between Dec. 27, 2025 and late January 2026, putting down about $33,034 across several different but closely related Venezuela markets.
In each case, he took the same side, repeatedly buying “YES” on outcomes like U.S. forces entering the country and Nicolás Maduro being removed from power by Jan. 31.
- Prosecutors say these weren’t lucky calls. Van Dyke was directly involved in planning a classified mission, known internally as “Operation Absolute Resolve,” giving him early access to details that weren’t public.
On Jan. 3, U.S. forces captured Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela. Within hours, Polymarket contracts flipped to “YES,” locking in the outcome and instantly paying out the winning bets.
What Happened After the Win
Authorities say the money didn’t sit still for long. Prosecutors allege the funds were quickly moved into a “foreign cryptocurrency vault,” then routed into a newly opened brokerage account.
On the same day as the operation, most of the funds were pulled off the platform. Around that time, unusual trading activity tied to Venezuela markets started getting attention online.
Investigators say Van Dyke then tried to clean things up:
“On or about January 6, 2026, for example, Van Dyke asked Polymarket to delete his Polymarket account, falsely claiming that he had lost access to the email address to which the account had been associated. That same day, Van Dyke changed the email registered to his cryptocurrency exchange account to an email address that was not subscribed to in his name, and which he had created on or about Dec. 14, 2025.”
The Legal Stakes
Van Dyke is now facing several federal charges, including fraud, wire fraud, and using confidential government information for personal gain.
Each fraud-related charge can bring up to 10 years in prison, while wire fraud alone carries up to 20 years. There’s also another charge tied to financial transactions that can add up to 10 more years, so the total potential sentence adds up fast.
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