Polymarket Maduro’s special forces soldier bets on bail in case

An Army special forces member criminally charged with gambling for huge profits in polymarkets in connection with the U.S. military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro appeared in federal court in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday and was released on $250,000 unsecured bail.

Sergeant Major Gannon Ken Van Dyke was ordered to appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday. He is charged in court with wire fraud and other charges related to allegedly using confidential information about a planned operation to obtain approximately $410,000 in gambling and then attempting to conceal that plan.

Van Dyke, who has served in the Army since 2008, was arrested Thursday in North Carolina, where he is based at Fort Bragg.

Calci, Polymarket’s main competitor in the prediction markets space, acknowledged on Friday that it had blocked Van Dijk from opening a Calsi account. Reuters first reported that Carsi blocked Van Dijk’s attempt to create an account.

Elizabeth Diana, a spokeswoman for Mr. Carsi, said she could not provide details about when Mr. Van Dyke, 38, attempted to open an account or why he was prevented from doing so.

However, a civil lawsuit filed Thursday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission against Van Dyke alleges that on Dec. 24, he “submitted an application to open an account with a CFTC-licensed and regulated designated contract market that is not affiliated with Polymarket, which allows U.S.-based users to trade event contracts.”

Karshi is one such licensed market.

“At the time, DCM provided event contracts related to Venezuela, including event contracts related to the removal of President Maduro,” the CFTC complaint states.

“Mr. Van Dijk was unable to open an account with DCM despite contacting DCM’s customer support chat on or around December 26, 27, and 28, 2025.”

Prosecutors say Van Dyke helped plan and carry out the Jan. 3 attack in Caracas, opening the Polymarket account on Dec. 27, nearly three weeks after U.S. special forces captured the Maduros and shipped them to the United States on a Navy ship. The couple are facing federal drug charges in the same courtroom where Van Dyke was recently indicted, prosecutors said.

In the week leading up to the attack, Van Dyke used Polymarket’s account to place a series of bets on contracts regarding whether U.S. troops would be in Venezuela by January 31, whether President Maduro would leave office by that date, and related questions, according to the indictment.

He is accused of placing about $33,000 in more than a dozen bets, according to the indictment, which is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Van Dyke’s arrest is the latest in a series of controversies involving prediction markets, whose growing popularity has raised concerns about gambling addiction and people with inside information misusing their knowledge to bet on event contracts.

On Friday, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) introduced a bill that would ban U.S. senators from trading in prediction markets.

On Wednesday, the day before Van Dyke’s arrest, Carsi announced that he had fined and suspended one Senate candidate and two House candidates for dealing with his campaign.

Polymarket CEO Shane Coplan said in a post on X on Friday that the company had notified the Department of Justice about suspicious activity in Van Dyke’s account.

“We are grateful that the Department of Justice has formally acknowledged Polymarket’s cooperation in this matter. All noise aside, the fact is that we are actively cooperating with all relevant authorities regarding suspicious activity on the Marketplace,” Coplan said.

“We informed this, we referred to it and we cooperated throughout the process,” he said. “Despite what many people are led to believe, this happens all the time behind the scenes.”

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalsi have a commercial relationship that includes a minority investment in CNBC.