A US Army Green Beret has been arrested after prosecutors alleged he used classified information tied to an operation targeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to place high-stakes bets on a prediction market. According to IOL, which cited RT News, Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly used insider knowledge from his role in planning and executing the January raid to wager on Maduro’s removal from power.

The case is already feeding wider alarm over how war, regime change and military operations are being turned into betting opportunities online. It also raises serious questions about the use of sensitive state information for private profit.

Prosecutors say insider knowledge fuelled the bets

Prosecutors allege Van Dyke placed about $32,000 in wagers on Polymarket and made more than $400,000 by betting on Maduro’s removal. The US Justice Department, according to the report, has charged him with wire fraud, commodities fraud and unlawful use of government information. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has also filed a parallel complaint.

Polymarket said it flagged the suspicious activity itself and cooperated with investigators, according to the same report. That detail may become important as pressure grows on prediction market operators to show they can police abuse when major geopolitical events become tradable contracts.

Broader market scrutiny is growing

The report says the Venezuela case is only part of a much larger wave of scrutiny. During the US-Israeli war on Iran, prediction and traditional financial markets reportedly saw more than $1 billion in unusually well-timed wagers linked to strikes, ceasefires and diplomatic twists. IOL reported that this included an $850,000 bet placed just before US strikes on Iran and roughly $950 million in oil futures hours before President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire.

The article also says that Trump family links to the industry have drawn attention, with the New York Times previously reporting that Donald Trump Jr. had advisory ties to Polymarket and Kalshi, and an investment in Polymarket through 1789 Capital.

Questions deepen over war and profit

According to the report, the White House warned staff against using insider information on 24 March, a day after Trump ordered the first five-day pause in planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. Trump later said he was “not happy with any of that stuff”, while also remarking that “the whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino”.

For ordinary readers, the arrest lands far beyond one soldier or one raid. It speaks to a bigger global shift, where conflict, political upheaval and human risk are increasingly being packaged into markets, traded in real time, and shadowed by the threat of insider abuse.