US Arrests Army Green Beret Over Alleged $400,000 Betting Scandal on Venezuela Raid

The US Department of Justice has arrested a master sergeant in the Army, alleging that he used classified information about a military operation in Venezuela to place bets worth $33,000, which yielded approximately $400,000 in winnings. The indictment, unsealed on Thursday, charges Gannon Ken Van Dyke with unlawfully using confidential government information for personal gain, theft of non-public government information, and fraud. According to the allegations, Van Dyke created a Polymarket account in late December 2025 and placed 13 bets between then and early January 2026 on contracts related to the potential US military action in Venezuela. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also pursuing an insider trading complaint in federal court. Van Dyke, an active-duty soldier with the US Army Special Forces, was allegedly involved in the planning and execution of the operation to detain former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. After the raid, Van Dyke allegedly withdrew his winnings, converted them to a bridged version of USDC, and then moved the funds into a brokerage account. The incident has sparked concerns about insider trading and the use of confidential information for personal gain. US President Donald Trump has expressed disapproval of the practice of using confidential information for betting purposes, stating that the world has become 'somewhat of a casino.'