Soldier Charged in Polymarket Insider Trading Case Pleads Not Guilty

In brief

• U.S. Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of using classified information to profit from prediction market betting.
• Van Dyke allegedly placed bets on Polymarket regarding the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, netting over $400K in profits.
• This marks the first federal prosecution connected to prediction market activity.

A U.S. special forces soldier charged last week with insider trading for allegedly using classified intelligence to place winning bets on Polymarket pleaded not guilty in New York federal court Tuesday.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old Army Master Sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, entered the plea on Tuesday and was released on $250,000 bond. He was ordered to surrender his passport and restrict his travel.

Van Dyke allegedly leveraged his advance knowledge of Operation Absolute Resolve to place at least 13 bets totaling approximately $33,034. The wagers, placed between December 27, 2025 and January 2, 2026, focused on contracts predicting U.S. forces entering Venezuela and President Nicolás Maduro being unseated.

After the January 3 raid occurred as Van Dyke allegedly knew it would, his bets generated $409,881 in profits—and grabbed headlines as speculation mounted over who was behind the pseudonymous Polymarket account. The soldier transferred his winnings to a foreign cryptocurrency vault that generates interest, prosecutors alleged, then moved the funds to a newly created brokerage account on January 16.

Three days after the operation, he allegedly asked Polymarket to delete his account, falsely claiming he had lost access to his email address. Prior to his Polymarket activity, Van Dyke had been blocked from opening an account on rival prediction platform Kalshi in late December 2025, a source familiar with the matter told Decrypt.

The government's response signals an aggressive stance toward prediction market misuse.

“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, in a statement last Thursday. “The defendant allegedly violated the trust placed in him by the United States Government by using classified information about a sensitive military operation to place bets on the timing and outcome of that very operation, all to turn a profit.”

MANHATTAN — Gannon Ken Van Dyke, the U.S. Army soldier accused of placing Polymarket bets on Maduro’s capture, leaves federal court after pleading not guilty to his five-count indictment.

More TK @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/8xSVZKVhIK

— Erik Uebelacker (@Uebey) April 28, 2026

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche reinforced that federal laws protecting national security information fully apply to prediction markets, noting that widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon.

Following the charges, President Donald Trump told reporters last Thursday that he was “never much in favor” of prediction markets, saying they’ve helped turn “the whole world, unfortunately [into] somewhat of a casino.”

Trump, however, walked back those comments on Saturday when asked by Decrypt about the critical statements regarding prediction markets.

“Well, I don’t know,” he replied. “I know some people that are very smart. They like it, they disagree.”

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