Amna Nawaz:
A U.S. Special Forces soldier who helped to plan the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been indicted for allegedly using classified information about the raid to place bets in the prediction market.
The soldier, who was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, won more than $400,000 on the platform Polymarket by placing a series of bets about Maduro’s removal. The indictment is raising new concerns about insider trading and the need for regulation.
Joining us to discuss this is our White House correspondent, Liz Landers, and David Hill, who’s a journalist who writes about gambling for “Rolling Stone” and on his American Gambler Substack.
Welcome to you both.
And, David, I will start with you because you follow these markets so closely. Just briefly set the stage for us. What kind of concerns does this indictment raise?
David Hill, American Gambler Substack:
Well, it raises a lot of concerns. It also answers a lot of concerns.
There’s been quite a bit of concern about prediction markets and the markets that they offer on geopolitical events, but also on insider trading that might be happening in those markets, for a number of months, as we have seen prediction markets grow in the United States. And so a prosecution like this is very important, I think, for the prediction markets to try to return to some trust and sense of integrity about the markets that they offer.
Amna Nawaz:
And, Liz, you had a chance to ask President Trump about this indictment specifically yesterday. What did he say?
Liz Landers:
This news was breaking as we were going back into the Oval Office around 6:00 p.m. last night, and I asked the president about this case, kind of read some of the details to him. He had actually seemingly not heard about it yet, so he was asking me questions.
And then I asked him a follow-up question about these bigger bets that are also being placed about Iran. Here’s that exchange.
There are also bets, though, that are being placed as well on the Iran conflict too, and there have been some trackings where people suspect that there is insider trading happening on these prediction markets around the war. Are you concerned about that?
President Donald Trump:
The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino. And you look at what’s going on all over the world in Europe, and every place they’re doing these betting things. I was never much in favor of it. I don’t like it conceptually, but it is what it is.
No, I think that I’m not happy with any of that stuff.
Liz Landers:
One of those bets that has drawn quite a bit of scrutiny is a large bet again on Polymarket back in March on the death of the ayatollah. This person made about a half-a-million, an anonymous bettor on Polymarket.
Amna Nawaz:
Meanwhile, David, we know there’s been guidelines for sports gambling Web sites in place for years. That is not true when it comes to betting on geopolitical events. We know Congress is just starting to introduce some related bills, but when it comes to regulation or guidelines, what do you think is needed here?
David Hill:
Well, what Polymarket and Kalshi want us to believe is that they are offering futures contracts and should be regulated by the CFTC.
And there are regulations that exist within the CFTC about insider trading in commodities and futures. And so, ostensibly, any bet that you make on Kalshi and Polymarket should be under those same regulations, which is part of what I think we’re trying to test here with the arrest of Mr. Van Dyke and the investigation about whether or not he committed insider trading when he made the bet about the Maduro operation.
Amna Nawaz:
Liz, we know that the White House has reportedly actually issued a warning to its own staff last month against using insider information to bet on the Iran war in the prediction markets. Tell us about that.
Liz Landers:
Pretty unusual.
The White House Personnel Office sent around an e-mail to White House staffers last month, according to The Wall Street Journal, and said that they cannot bet on the Iran war in these prediction markets.
The White House said in a press statement that federal employees are subject to ethics guidelines that prohibit the use of non-public info for financial benefit. The Trump family, though, does have connections to these prediction markets. The president’s son, Don Jr., is an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket.
Some critics of the president have accused him of using his power as the president to manipulate the markets when he talks to reporters on the phone or issues statements on TRUTH Social. The Trump administration, though, is coming down hard in this indictment that came out yesterday.
The acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, said — quote — “Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”
The U.S. attorney that brought these charges against Van Dyke yesterday said that he engaged in — quote — “clear insider trading,” Amna.
Amna Nawaz:
David, pull this back a little bit for us in terms of the lens through which we’re looking at this.
Now, even if it is legal, right, is there something immoral or ethically questionable here about betting on geopolitical events when lives are potentially at stake?
David Hill:
Certainly, the question of morality is an important — is sort of central to all of this.
But I do think it’s important to understand that these types of these types of bets are made in the major financial markets every single day. I mean, just one of the big controversies that I think the Trump administration is sort of reacting to isn’t just the best that are made on Polymarket or on Kalshi, but that in the minutes before he announced the Iran cease-fire, there were close to a billion dollars worth of oil futures that were traded in the commodities markets.
And so there’s always the sort of looming question about insider information that could be utilized on bets in the markets that are impacted by world and global events.
Amna Nawaz:
All right, that is David Hill from “Rolling Stone” and our own Liz Landers covering this issue for us.
Thank you to you both.
