On the night of January 2, 2026, a 38-year-old soldier at Fort Bragg placed a large online bet. Hours later, helicopters flew toward Caracas. By morning, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured by American forces, and the soldier's bet was worth more than $400,000.
Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was arrested and charged with using classified information about the Maduro raid to win money on Polymarket, a prediction market where users bet on real-world events. The indictment revealed that Van Dyke had been in the Army since 2008 and was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
According to prosecutors, around December 26, 2025, Van Dyke opened a Polymarket account and placed 13 bets totaling about $33,000. He asked questions about whether Maduro would be removed from power and whether U.S. forces would land in Venezuela. He had participated in planning the operation, so he knew the answers.
When President Trump announced Maduro's capture on January 3, 2026, the contracts paid out. Van Dyke received over $400,000 in profit. He then withdrew the money and moved it through a foreign cryptocurrency account, but investigators were watching.
Polymarket stated that insider trading has no place on their platform. This case represents a new challenge for prediction markets in the United States. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a separate complaint against Van Dyke. After nearly two decades in the Army, Van Dyke chose to bet his career on a screen.