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US special forces soldier arrested after allegedly winning $400k on Maduro raid
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-classified-information-profit-prediction-market-bets?bm-verify=AAQAAAAN_____y6To7sZYZ502biZwIHXlr-7zXZUqV4H0xLTfW__wDA3SjNLqifXRaQwsikyuz6IJknyuL8xfVYRkesxcDk5V10m-HoXl2K93f17rygBphL77WVFoQ_XvlmUo922IwM_DQ66137X6wWMtpdHslcEjpJG7KbBmUw9Su4kDENpDt_yv2spThQZehgv-X1Adk5U2VHfp41co2s_QJGjRj4y0KmL1mhSCyVaE7MC1LHG0mtP-xYmD0xBOQwn6PlHkPiP5Nt46h5ZIjLGXgCZDEVD42i7rIEM379DKLPUPX0PDNmOAwFSuTqcTDVnT_UUV8vxpHLRMb7rUxPxKUPcIB23iZTRJddWDDtPHMXadpwv67xr-f1sKDLZT9NgHCO4iuC2EthmAt0 https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-soldier-charged-usin...
- dexwiz 6mo agoRules for thee but not for me.
- next_xibalba 6mo agoWho is the "thee" and "me" in this scenario?
- lovich 6mo agoThe guy who got arrested is “thee” the members of the White House admin and Congress making bets are the “me”
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- paulpauper 6mo agolol no SEC lawsuit or civil complaint: strait to the indictment and arrest. Goes to show how elites are truly a privileged class. They get to admit "no guilt" and forfeit profits, avoiding prosecution. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted. I never have the right opinion on anything.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> no SEC lawsuit or civil complaint The suspect didn't trade securities. SEC doesn't have jurisdiction. The curiosity–to me as a layman–is that this is being prosecuted by the DoJ versus under the UCMJ.
- paulpauper 6mo agoThen what laws were broken if it is not insider trading?
- next_xibalba 6mo agoProbably something related to leaking or unauthorized use of classified information.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> what laws were broken "Van Dyke was indicted on charges that included unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, and wire fraud."
- genxy 6mo agoHow does this not apply to Trump and the rest of congress? Billions in market manipulation.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoIt’s a good question. I don’t know. Unfortunately, my circle is mostly in securities, and thus that is not.
- paulpauper 6mo agoFeds waited no time to drop the indictment and make arrest. 3 months is lightning fast for a white collar crime. Wall St. ppl who commit insider trading pay a fine and admit no wrongdoing, discouraging the profits, and only after many years and trades have passed. Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules. His mistake was not knowing he was not in that club. Have no idea why this was downvoted. I see so many other people who make this argument about privileged elites and always get upvoted.
- joe_mamba 6mo ago> Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules. Epstein said the same, and yet nobody went out to protest.
- livinglist 6mo agoRules for thee not for me
- kobalsky 6mo agoThis doesn't seem like a simple white collar crime. If the military are betting on the operations they will carry it's virtually espionage.
- mcmcmc 6mo agoWouldn’t that make insider trading virtually corporate espionage?
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoWhat was the last corporate-espionage conviction in America?
- mcmcmc 6mo agoGreat question for google. 30 seconds of effort would indicate it’s within the last couple years
- TZubiri 6mo agoNice. I'm against polymarket allowing bets on war precisely because of this. But I think we can all agree that perpetrators hold more liability than the platforms, they are the true cuplrits of warcrimes/treason.
- k310 6mo agoNabbing the little guy for show, very much like Henry Hill taking one for Paulie and the gang. The same gang that robbed the Lufthansa vault at JFK Airport, stealing six million dollars in cash and jewelry. When the history of this administration is written, provided that history itself has not been completely rewritten a la "1984," Goodfellas will be required reading/watching. And the highly profitable daily mood-induced oil price bets will just be forgotten. Wilhoit's Law: Wilhoit's law. “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/ https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/
- paulpauper 6mo agoI made a similar argument and was downvoted. Yeah, the well-connected pay a fine when caught. This guy's mistake was not knowing he did not belong to that club. He amounted to no more than a fall guy.
- nickburns 6mo agoThey don't call 'em cannon fodder for nothin'!
- RhysU 6mo agoWilholt's essay is a nice one. But it amounts to defining the opposition in a way that's easy to tear apart followed by tearing it apart. It's a cute trick but isn't much of a basis for serious discussion. Watch: Wilholt's essay consists of exactly and only one indefensible, rhetorical sleight of hand. Consequently, no one can honestly defend it. Attempts to do so are undeserving of serious scrutiny. After tearing down a strawman, he claims high ground: > The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone. But you'll get a fair bit of support for Wilholt's so-called anti-conservative principle from a fair number of prominent conservative thinkers.
- zaptheimpaler 6mo agoThe modern US conservative party really does seem to believe only in that one principle and nothing else. They will pardon actual sex traffickers like Andrew Tate and worse as long as they're on their side. They will defend any action at all by Trump, no matter how vile or illegal or stupid or wrong. It's not a sleight of hand if its true.
- polski-g 6mo agoHow is this illegal? Polymarket isn't a US-regulated market.
- gpm 6mo agoIt's rather obviously illegal to leak classified intel by taking public actions based off of it... that's practically the meaning of the word "classified".
- georgemcbay 6mo agoIt is illegal to leak classified intel if you're just an average person. If you're the Trump hand-picked Secretary of the War Department then it is not illegal and will never be punished. Always remember which tier of justice you are on prior to committing a crime!
- Rekindle8090 6mo ago[dead]
- junar 6mo agoFrom the indictment, he's being charged with the following: * Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain * Theft of Nonpublic Government Information * Commodities Fraud * Wire Fraud * Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1437781/dl https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1437781/dl
- paulpauper 6mo agoSo had this not involved presumed military secrets, it would have been legal? So it was the classified info that made it a crime, and then the insider trading aspect was later tacked on? It's crazy how the government adds so many charges. This guy is screwed.
- 6mo ago
- warlog 6mo agoThey should run for Congress
- jh00ker 6mo agoHow many people in congress made the exact same bet on the exact same information, and for them it's "legal?"
- snypher 6mo ago“Any clearance holders thinking of cashing in their access and knowledge for personal gain will be held accountable” Yeah right.
- cosmicgadget 6mo agoIt is legal and until we vote for people who will outlaw it we only have ourselves to blame.
- GolfPopper 6mo agoEasy to say, hard to do, when your two "choices" at the ballot box represent slightly different groups of wealthy donors.
- XorNot 6mo agoAh enlightened centrism rears its head again. Remember folks: at all points both sides are exactly the same /s.
- singingtoday 6mo agoIf you guilt me into voting, I'll probably vote for somebody you don't like. Isn't it better that I don't vote?
- _carbyau_ 6mo agoNo. It is better that you vote. For at the end of the day you can: 1. know you tried to express your wishes 2. know that the outcome is because people expressed their wishes 3. realise the balance between 1. and 2. whether the outcome is as you hoped, and especially if it is not as you hoped. This is important because hanging back and saying "Well I didn't vote for them!" is by default not supporting democracy as your country views it.
- _DeadFred_ 6mo agoIsn't this the purpose of Polymarket? To give a more accurate picture of what is going on/going to happen by giving insiders a financial incentive?
- fuzzfactor 6mo agoI thought so too. Giving people with insider info a chance to make a buck in ways they didn't have before. Not my downvote btw, corrective upvote now applied.
- meric_ 6mo agoPolymarket isn't doing anything about it. It's the US government because obviously while I suppose this info made a more accurate "prediction" it also yk, leaked confidential state military secrets which is something the government can prosecute. They're not being prosecuted for insider trading on Polymarket
- stubish 6mo agoInsider bets distort the probabilities, creating a conflict of interest and causing market manipulation. We don't let athletes bet on their own games, because some will deliberately lose. They will do this when the odds are good and they will make more money. So you don't get accurate predictions, because the more probable something is, the better the odds and the more money to be made by someone manipulating the odds. End result is you place bets against things you want to happen. eg. USA invading Iran. If you win the bet, you make money. If you lose the bet, you still win because the USA invaded Iran. And maybe that happened because people in power took your bet and influenced the odds in their favor. A fully deniable market for bribes. Same reason you can't bet on unnatural death, because it crowdsources assassination.
- s1artibartfast 6mo agoSure, but the purpose of the FBI is to go after people leaking classified military Intel. Different people and organizations in this world have different goals. More news 10.
- 6mo ago
- sandworm101 6mo agoWhat was his rank? What was his job? What was his clearance? How did he have access? The canadians have the info. He was special forces. He was enlisted (not an officer). He was involved, or at least privy to, the planning of the Venezuela thing. https://globalnews.ca/news/11814801/maduro-capture-polymarket-us-army-charged/ https://globalnews.ca/news/11814801/maduro-capture-polymarke...
- chatmasta 6mo agoI thought the names in the opening were the people being charged. Then I realized they were the prosecutors.
- mrtksn 6mo agoAre prediction markets regulated? Is this about breaking the laws regarding prediction markets or is this about leaking classified information? I skimmed but not sure still. Someone more cynical can say that this is about protecting Thiel’s investment(if people think it’s rigged may stop playing) or making sure that only big G makes money with classified information.
- garciasn 6mo agoFrom the article: unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
- mrtksn 6mo agoSo what law is broken exactly? Will an engineer with classified information on F-35 use that for fixing his car be also prosecuted? I guess no, so is this about leaking the Maduro operation? Insider trading and outcome manipulation seems to be the norm on unregulated markets anyway. Whats the crime?
- mlazos 6mo agoBy the letter of the law the guy fixing his car should be prosecuted, but like nobody is going to know and it’s not going to happen. In this case it’s pretty obvious the law was broken.
- pjc50 6mo agoPeople have been prosecuted several times for using classified information to win WarThunder forum arguments.
- akudha 6mo agoThese two videos might be of some help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A654vzQTGbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A654vzQTGbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4
- AngryData 6mo agoPerfectly fine for the rich and powerful, but don't you average citizen dare do anything like it! The US law and justice system is a complete joke.
- paulddraper 6mo ago[flagged]
- sirshmooey 6mo agoPredictable, wind-up doll response from the siloed information consumption crowd.
- Hnrobert42 6mo agoHow do you know which accounts are theirs?
- jawilson2 6mo agoThen they should be in jail. Just like Trump and everyone enabling fascism. Have any other whatabout-its?
- loeg 6mo agoThis is also illegal for any rich or powerful service members.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- sigmar 6mo agoSince this is relevant to many HN comments, copy-pasted the charges from the pdf indictment in the linked page: Count 1 - Unlawful Use of Confidential Government Information for Personal Gain Count 2 - Theft of Nonpublic Government Information Count 3 - Commodities Fraud Count 4 - Wire Fraud Count 5 - Engaging in a Monetary Transaction in Property Derived from Specified Unlawful Activity
- jcgrillo 6mo agoIt's interesting they don't think they can get him for leaking classified information. To me that seems like the biggest issue--I mean sure, it's bad he made money on it, but it would have been really bad if he'd gotten someone killed by blabbing to the internet.
- enoint 6mo agoIf that happened, could they retroactively classify it?
- jcgrillo 6mo agoMaybe I'm making an incorrect assumption, but I assumed the information was already classified. He was betting on an outcome of a planned military operation based on his knowledge of those plans. My assumption is that information is super closely guarded, and likely classified at a high level. Telegraphing your invasion plans is generally not something you do unless you want disaster, right?
- HoldOnAMinute 6mo agoEveryone's a grifter these days.
- notTheLastMan 6mo ago[dead]
- yieldcrv 6mo agoHe screwed himself by taking steps to show how much of an amateur he was, by trying to delete his polymarket account and change the email address on his crypto exchange account He should have just cashed out and donated 20% of it to Mar-a-Lago saying exactly what he did and a thank you. It's a little too low for a club membership but since the President's family is a shareholder of Polymarket I think it would have been seen as attracting liquidity AG would have been instructed to stamp out the investigation, no charges would have been filed
- LEDThereBeLight 6mo agoYou’re right. Maybe a statement with something like “Never bet against America!”
- rvz 6mo agoIn desperate times in the age of AI, one needs to grift in order to survive. This soldier was just doing that to maybe...enrich themselves like the politicians also breaking insider trading laws? This is why no-one at the top institutions, politicians (Pelosi), presidents (Trump) and everyone else in proximity gets arrested or charged for insider trading in all forms. It doesn't apply to them. This is a reminder that the rule makers are allowed to grift and break their own rules, but will arrest you for copying them or doing the same thing because this soldier was not part of their club. He wasn't invited to their private insider group chat. So this solider was arrested and charged instead.
- int32_64 6mo agoIt seems like it would be highly demoralizing to US soldiers that they are prosecuted for betting on the outcomes of the battles they are risking their lives for but those insider trading commanding them aren't.
- herewulf 6mo agoImagine doing an easy tour in your air conditioned Kuwaiti logistics office and then getting blown to bits by a ballistic missile because no one bothered to tell you about the war that was being initiated which would cause such missiles in retaliation. Yeah, that's demoralizing too.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 6mo agoThey should have kept an eye on the prediction markets.
- int32_64 6mo agoThere will be derivative contracts of prediction markets to predict if an insider is indicted for betting on a specific prediction. And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the prosecutor's office bet on that contract. And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if a special prosecutor will prosecute the other prosecutor. And those prediction markets will have derivative markets to predict if an insider in the special prosecutor's office bet on the other contract. (additional derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god).
- rcbdev 6mo ago> derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god We already bet on the weather.
- Freak_NL 6mo agoWhich is totally up the gods — or a hairdryer: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-lighter-french-police-look-at-claim-of-sensor-tampering-to-win-weather-bets https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/hairdryer-or-l...
- mil22 6mo agoSo crypto fraud gets deprioritized, with cases like the one against Nader Al-Naji dropped entirely, while Trump and his family profit massively from crypto and corruption themselves. Yet prediction market fraud is made an enforcement priority, except to say that nobody close to Trump's own cabinet will be prosecuted - the little guys will be made an example of to make it seem like those at the top are taking the moral high-ground. "Every accusation is a confession." I think we all can guess at the truth here.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- ChrisArchitect 6mo agoAssociated DOJ release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-soldier-charged-using-classified-information-profit-prediction-market-bets https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-soldier-charged-usin...
- penguin_booze 6mo ago[flagged]
- hettygreen 6mo agoCha-Ching! I bet $2000 that this guy was going to get charged.
- markus_zhang 6mo agoWe all know there were suspicious large bets on the stock and oil markets during the war. If small potatoes are getting sued while the sharks swim freely. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the moral.
- danso 6mo agoIt’s arguable that opening the doors for greedy soldiers to do a little insider trading and inadvertently expose the illegal covert violent raid that they’re party to might be one of the few positive outcomes in a society gamified by Polymarket
- StrangeClone 6mo agoCongress is protected but soliders arent from profiting. Why are laws so biased?
- yoyohello13 6mo agoThe first group makes laws, the second group doesn't.
- mcmcmc 6mo agoThis isn’t actually the case. Congress members and their employees have been banned from insider trading since the 2012 STOCK Act. That’s why they do it through family members now
- heavyset_go 6mo agoSilly prole, insider trading is a white collar crime reserved for your betters. Time to learn your place.
- doom2 6mo agoI thought prodiction markets benefit from insider knowledge. Isn't the whole point that insiders make bets, thereby surfacing knowledge and allowing for more accurate forecasts? So wouldn't we want more military service members making bets? In this case, any potential military target of the US would really want this insider info.
- analog31 6mo agoI think the problem is similar to insider sports betting, which is that once someone has made a bet, they will try to influence policy decisions in order to profit from that bet. It's not so much insider knowledge that's a problem, but insider influence. You're paying people to make bad decisions.
- mcmcmc 6mo agoMaybe we just don’t want prediction markets.
- danny_codes 6mo agoYou spelled gambling platform wrong. This attempt to rename gambling websites is infuriating. I hope these people get meaningful prison time
- analog31 6mo agoI think the problem is similar to insider sports betting, which is that once someone has made a bet, they will try to influence policy decisions in order to profit from that bet. It's not so much insider knowledge that's a problem, but insider influence. You're paying people to make bad decisions. Although, it would be amusing to create a sports league where the athletes are expressly permitted to wager on the outcome of their games.
- bawolff 6mo ago> So wouldn't we want more military service members making bets Who is the "we" in this sentence? Yes, insider knowledge makes the prediction market more accurate (albeit at the cost of being less "fair"). However US government doesn't want prediction markets to accurately predict the timing of their secret military operations. Hence the arrest.
- WalterGR 6mo agoThere’s 109 comments on this submission of the news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883108
- curious1008 6mo ago[dead]
- anonymous344 6mo agoso they catched this guy, yet pelosi and 300 others ate making millions every month, and nothing.. really people who has woken up, there is no words for this, yet the 80% are still asleep
- danny_codes 6mo agoSince citizens united it’s legal to pay unlimited amounts for political propaganda (lying to the public). Obama called this out explicitly after the ruling and his analysis has been more or less accurate.
- zeafoamrun 6mo agoPrediction markets working as intended.
- looksjjhg 6mo agoThat’s hilarious … so he’s arrested and put on trial and all the senate and congress are doing the exact same and free? lol
- chii 6mo agoPalpatine: I am the senate!
- wraptile 6mo agoAt this point insider trading issue has run away so hard I don't see how it can be tamed without revolutionary frameworks. If we look at crypto then I'm not sure we want to live in a world where insider trading is normalized either so we ought to start working on these new frameworks as soon as possible but nobody seems to care.
- ImHereToVote 6mo agoSpeculation has historically been solved by a workers vanguard party.
- nandomrumber 6mo ago> without revolutionary frameworks I’d argue that the level of corruption we’re seeing, not just in the USA but all over the Western world, hasn’t risen to a level that warrants revolutionary action. > nobody seems to care And it would seem that the masses tend to agree. We are much much better off tolerating this level of corruption than we would be attempting a revolution. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how fat the fat cats are so long as the general population’s standard of living doesn't go backwards too far too fast.
- ashtonshears 6mo agoSad that you have given up
- vasco 6mo ago
- kush3434 6mo agowhat is that country
- seany 6mo agoSeems like he needed more Op/InfoSec training...
- throw03172019 6mo agoInsiders bet a solider would be caught for betting on Maduro. They won.
- breppp 6mo agoThe entire corruption-as-service aspect of this is interesting. I wonder when someone figures out vote-buying-as-service
- blobbers 6mo agoDoes polymarket have trial markets? Maybe 12% chance of being a mistrial - oh wait just shot up to 99%; new user called the_judge88 just bet $100K on that?
- chaboud 6mo agoI was under the impression that insider influence was the point of these systems? Want something to happen? Bet a lot of money that it won't, pulling the market forces towards the action you want. It goes from "taking out a hit" to "betting that someone will live to next Thursday". It's such an obvious outcome of these systems that I was operating on the assumption that it was the actual point. So maybe the thing this guy did wrong was to be so face-palmingly pants-on-head obvious about it that they had to shut it down?
- shusaku 6mo ago“Super markets trade money for food. An obvious outcome is that someone without money will shoot the employees to steal food. Therefore the purpose of supermarkets is to facilitate murder”
- pixl97 6mo ago"I'm betting 10 million (fake) dollars that the HN user shusaku will not die between 9AM and 10AM CST on May 1st 2026."
- SlinkyOnStairs 6mo agoLess so "supermarkets" specifically and moreso "capitalism" and the answers to your conclusion is obviously, yes. This is why welfare systems exist. Because otherwise the system will push people to crime, especially so in our current implementation of Capitalism where it is possible to become unemployed/unemployable through no fault of one's own.
- aqme28 6mo agoWhich is also horrifying if you think about it for more than a second. "Want something to happen? Bet a lot of money that it won't" goes both ways. "Want to make money and have power over missile systems? Bet, and then make something happen."
- shevy-java 6mo agoThe more surprising thing is that the common invasion soldier also benefits financially. So far we only knew that the oligarch system that is currently controlling the USA, also benefits massively - the stock market changes with regards to Iran showed this already, but also see the more recent comments made in regards not just to the orange king himself, but his family dynasty and their involvement; in particular orange king jr. is involved a LOT here, also with regards to that mentioned soldier (see the companies that were involved, crypto-stuff and so forth). This reminds me a bit of Epstein, in a way - so far the US justice system claims that only two people (the dead Epstain and his wife) organised all those naughty parties. Well, that is logistically simply impossible, aside from the question how they had all that money. How deep do these networks used by the superrich go? You have more and more victims who claimed not only to have been underage, but also service-sold to other rich people. Why are these latter people not in court? How corrupt is that system? Evidently we now know that these invasion soldiers also bet on their own invasions - I guess when they claim "we are doing work for Good" here they mean this with regards to their own pockets. Just as Smedley D. Butler once stated, many many years ago: "War is a racket"
- pavlov 6mo agoWhat’s the point of prediction markets? They are just ordinary gambling unless you allow insider trading and manipulation, because that’s the only way the market can acquire and represent novel useful information. But if you allow those things, you run into a host of well-documented problems which are the reason why those things are forbidden in other markets. As it stands, prediction markets seem like a tech-aligned rebranding of age-old rigged gambling products.
- haritha-j 6mo agoIn theory no, because it provides financial incentive to perform a comprehensive analysis of available data or conduct thorough investigations. In practice, yep.
- d--b 6mo agoThe original point is to use crowd wisdom. Crowds seem better than single individuals to predict outcomes of certain types of events. I think this is visible in sports betting markets. Unless all games are rigged, games outcomes are fairly random events, and betting markets are pretty good at assessing the probabilities of a team winning. Same thing happens in finance. Option markets are really good at assessing the probabilities of asset movements. The thing though is that these markets are only good in predicting recurring events like game results or financial asset movements. They are good _overall_, as in, if you take 100,000 sport games, the bettings odds are going to be overall in line with what actually happens. Hence some people deduced that crowds with skin in the game were wise in predicting random stuff. And what happened then is that some of them thought this kind of predictive power could apply to any kind of event, and then predictive markets were created, with the idea that crowds could magically come up with odds for anything, and that would be fairly correct. But what works for recurring events don't hold for single events like Maduro's capture or the end of the Iran war. So the odds in these market is only the result of influence and insider information. The result is that the odds are generally completely off, unless there is insider information. That's kind of what happened in the 2008 financial crisis. The bets there were on loans defaulting. These events are rare enough that it's impossible to assess their probability easily. And so banks relied on rating agencies (influence), to price the odds of these events happening. Rating agencies were wrong on a lot of these bets, meaning all the bets were placed at very very wrong prices, resulting in the crisis we saw. The weird outcome of it all, is that those prediction markets have become insider information detectors. That's how they caught the guy. Whoever is winning big on these markets is necessarily cheating. But I guess the main takeaway for me is that society is in such a state that a lot of people actually bet big on these things. Probably a combination of being fed dreams of fortune since childhood and the american dream not delivering. It's all very sad.
- smileson2 6mo agoMy respects to a real one, hope it turns out ok
- haritha-j 6mo agoBet your life, not your money on this mission please. Thankz.
- zeptonix 6mo agoThis looks like the wallet lol - https://polyintel.io/trader/0x31a56e9e690c621ed21de08cb559e9524cdb8ed9 https://polyintel.io/trader/0x31a56e9e690c621ed21de08cb559e9...
- RaSoJo 6mo agoGreed is always the undoing of such criminals. If he'd stuck to $500 - $1000 bets, he could have stayed under the radar. And, over the period of his career, earned well north of $400k.
- beepbooptheory 6mo agoSpecial forces in America are somewhat famous at this point for having side hustles.. Betting on themselves like this is at least better than being murderous drug dealers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fort_Bragg_Cartel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fort_Bragg_Cartel
- giarc 6mo agoIt would be hard not to when you can type in amounts and get instant feedback on what you would make. I imagine him sitting there, typing in $1000 and seeing $3000 payout. Then thinking "What if I just took my $32,000 savings and put it on this bet?". Type that in, see $400k and think "I can't not do this!"
- 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo agoNot that I am endorsing the behavior, but it is not a given how many high profile operations the soldier might glean in a time relevant manner. That might have been the one shot, one opportunity to hit big.
- mnmnmn 6mo ago[dead]
- Luker88 6mo agoSolving insider trading is fundamentally impossible due to the burden of proof. However I am convinced that forcing people to keep their shares for even just one week would stabilize the markets enough to make insider trading much more obvious (and easier to prosecute). It would also force a shift on perspectives more on the long run, instead of focusing on immediate speculation. This was a prediction market, not a proper market trade, and I am glad I live in a country where that is outlawed. This is untaxed, unregulated gambling.
- JonChesterfield 6mo agoIt would do nothing. You'd get an increase in derivatives volume with the same underlying effect.
- OutOfHere 6mo agoHis op-sec probably wasn't sufficient to hide his gains via multiple small bets, no-log VPN, and cycling through Monnero both ways. The next prediction market to directly use Monero and no-log will be untraceable.
- spankibalt 6mo agoSome things do trickle down.
- mellosouls 6mo agoThere are a lot of (rightly) critical comments here about the imbalance between prosecutions of high-ups taking bets and the grunts (in this case though, a senior-ranking soldier). But it seems to me that the closer to the frontline you go, the betrayal is even worse; if the story is true, then these are his friends and comrades he is endangering for financial gain - its not just an abstract risk argued away by simple high-level corruption.
- cpncrunch 6mo agoDo we have any evidence of higher-ups making bets?
- mellosouls 6mo agoPeople with a lot of money have certainly been making bets (plenty of recent news items on that), but I think the point being raised by others is that it's suspicious that only the lower orders have so far apparently been pursued.
- cpncrunch 6mo agoWe don't have evidence of that either.
- tencentshill 6mo agoTherefore we should stop talking about it anywhere, ever. There is nothing to see here, peasant.
- cpncrunch 6mo agoNo, we just shouldnt be confusing speculation as fact.
- Fokamul 6mo agoWhat an idiot, don't input your real id and don't use own face in KYC. Omfg. Morally it's ok to steal crypto from these types of markets, everybody is crooked there, client and market makers.
- Tade0 6mo agoI guess the rest can now bet on whether he will: 1. Apply for a presidential pardon. 2. Get it.
- sdoering 6mo agoWilhoit’s Law “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” Albeit wrongly attributed. [1] [1]: https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservative...
- Havoc 6mo agoWhat about the rest of the Trump clan and their shady shit? Donald Trump Jr. serves as an advisor to both Kalshi and Polymarket...it's just comical
- Foobar8568 6mo agoIn France, in the 80s-80s, a comedian trio did a sketch on rural hunters, and the final was about the difference between the good hunter and the bad hunter, the whole sketch was like 6-7min and 1min was about the good and bad hunter. I keep remembering this sketch each time I read about the differences in prosecution in the US between social classes. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FJCplaZBgg0 https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FJCplaZBgg0
- s_dev 6mo agoYou have to switch your VPN to France to watch this video. Just FYI. I didn't get it at all btw. From what I gathered: What's the difference between a good hunter and bad hunter. A bad hunter shoots anything that moves, a good hunter shoots anything that moves. Perhaps something was lost in translation.
- Foobar8568 6mo agoIt's parody of French rural hunters, and in this section, it's about the mental gymnastics they have about differencing themselves from the "bad" ones, while the rest of the sketch you see them shooting at any movements, littering the forest, explaining multiple hunting "accidents". And the autosub doesn't do justice.
- jimt1234 6mo agoUnsurprisingly, Trump is downplaying the situation, comparing it to Pete Rose betting on his own team. And, naturally, conservatives are falling in line, excusing the situation because Congress does this all the time. https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/donald-trump-uses-pete-rose-justify-soldiers-shady-maduro-bet-hes-wrong- https://www.foxnews.com/outkick-sports/donald-trump-uses-pet...
- iberator 6mo agoPrime example showing lack of more of any kind of soldiers and us army. They illegally kidnapped the president of the sovereign country - they should be all in jail! USA is a rogue state at this point. NATO is at risk because of that.
- Jamesbeam 6mo agoIf you destroy the integrity of the professional military corps through destructive and despotic behaviour that drives out those who hold to their principles, soldiers like this are the result of Hegseth’s cultification. Nobody should be surprised. Hegseth thinks loyalists + AI as brains can replace decades of actual real-world experience and keeping the highest ethics and morality standards with a bunch of AI-driven baboons with stars on their shoulders. Paul Krugman wrote a good piece about exactly this. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/cultifying-the-us-military https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/cultifying-the-us-militar... Everyone can already feel the ripples of what he is doing. There is an exodus in excellence in the upper echelons of the us military never seen before. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/navy-secretary-john-phelan-leaving-post https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/22/navy-secreta... The US is getting less safe by the day. You can also see it on tourism data and forecasts. A lot of people don’t feel safe to travel to the US any longer. Soccer World Cup in the US and 250th anniversary of the USA would have caused a tourism boom with past administrations. But people rather go to China instead. https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/tourists-america-us-china-canada-germany-europeb2961553.html https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/tourist...
- h1fra 6mo agoIt's only illegal when you are not a politician apparently
- giannicmptr1000 6mo agohe went too small, need to go bigger to roll with the big boys
- NuclearPM 6mo agoRevolution time.
- penguin_booze 6mo agoHe'll be pardoned shortly.
- ghtbircshotbe 6mo agoMany people here are talking about how more powerful people are also corrupt and are getting away with it. All corruption is bad. This soldier put the life of everyone on the mission in danger by doing this.
- enraged_camel 6mo agoAll corruption is bad. Selective enforcement of the law is worse. It increases corruption by giving a strong incentive to win favors from powerful people.
- cucumber3732842 6mo agoAt least they're still pretending to not be corrupt. Inequality codified into the law, literal separate rules, is worse still.
- nonethewiser 6mo agoDo you think this guy's chances of getting away with it would have increased if he solicited favors from powerful people?
- throwaway85825 6mo agoA pardon costs ~1M, just need to still more than that and you're golden.
- TSiege 6mo agoThe sentiment is not that this man shouldn't be prosecuted it is that the blatant double standard and growing endemic societal cancer that is corruption is being allowed to blossom while leaders target scape goats for the same behavior. What this administration is trying to signal with going after this guy is that the problem is not with them, it's someone else, that they're on the up and up. It is why scapegoating is an effective tactic
- fsckboy 6mo ago
- everdrive 6mo agoI don't think I have anything meaningful to add here. This is extremely disappointing, especially at a time when there seems to be so little cultural cohesion. Everyone is just out for themselves. I'll also admit I've never liked gambling (or fraud) so it's really hard for me to understand what is so appealing about something like polymarket or kalshi. (I have the same gaps with regard to casinos, they just seem like hell on earth -- not a positive aspect to them whatsoever) At least from my outsider's perspective it seems clear that these sorts of gambling are not good for society whatsoever.
- lobo_tuerto 6mo agoHow dares he profit from insider trading when being only a mere soldier?
- fifticon 6mo agoApparently he did not belong to the social class who are allowed to do this.
- thrawa8387336 6mo agoEpstein class
- regularization 6mo agoCorruption means something legitimate is happening that can be corrupted. Maduro was president of a sovereign country. A bunch of kidnappers and murderers invaded the building he was in in Caracas, murdered everyone in the room, then kidnapped him and his wife. What's the "mission"? To pop up in some room and slaughter everyone in it, then kidnap his wife and him? In order to help steal the resources, billions of dollars in oil, for already wealthy people? Same thing happening in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria. Israel with US help slaughtering people to steal their land and resources. There's no mission except theft and murder. There's no corruption because the entire enterprise is rotten to begin with.
- _alternator_ 6mo agoI get this sentiment, but I'll just make the classic "two wrongs don't make a right" rebuttal.
- FpUser 6mo agoProblem is that only one kind of wrongs being chased. It is systemic and erodes trust
- mpalczewski 6mo ago> Maduro was president of a sovereign country. It's funny how we accept the importance given to that statement. when he's just some dude who took control of a country and gave himself that title. As if the social construction means anything in this situation.
- Retric 6mo ago> and gave himself that title Declaring yourself president means nothing. I’m the president of planet earth and nothing changes. Similarly he could go by grand pimp and it would be just as meaningful. Legitimacy comes from all the people backing up his claim to control of the country. Further governments care about legitimacy because it’s way easier to assassinate leaders than win wars and leaders don’t want to be at risk. It’s pure self interest protecting each other.
- maerF0x0 6mo agoJust another example of Rules for thee but not for me... Politicians are making winning bets too, at several orders of magnitude larger - https://www.independent.org/article/2026/02/16/congress-beat-stock-market-2025/ https://www.independent.org/article/2026/02/16/congress-beat... "The Rich Don't Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883033 Also I would argue that the claim this endangered lives is exaggerated and is clearly more about making examples than true impact.
- i_love_retros 6mo agoTrumps first campaign promise was drain the swamp. The center of power in america has never been more swamp like than now. In fact swamp is not accurate, more like gigantic pile of steaming stinking trash.
- elzbardico 6mo agoHe is small fish. Yes, he was wrong and need to be punished, but still, an small fish on the deep ocean of government inside trading. If you rob 100.000, you will have a problem with the police and will be arrested. If you rob 1 billion, the police will have a problem if they try to arrest you.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 6mo agoThere was a story about a cop who pulled over a Walmart heir for drunk drinking(?). The cop lost their job.
- TheGRS 6mo agoReally disheartening to see this and it brings up so many thoughts and feelings I have over the current state of the US, politically, popularly, and how everyone is thinking about morality personally. If this had happened during, say, the Osama bin Laden raid I think it would have been one of those "damaging the American psyche" stories that would have run for months with a giant trial and a lot of public shame. Trump coming onto the scene and his first term broke a lot of people's capacity for caring about those sorts of events. Now we have an operation the public didn't ask for, initiated by people with no clear moral codes of their own and very unclear objectives, ones that we can largely assume are for their own personal gain as well, and all of that trickling down to blatantly illegal use of confidential data for personal gain by someone the public would typically respect. And I'm sure a subset of people will try to make this into a big story, but with everything else that's gone on recently I think it probably fades after a few days (except for the prosecutors involved of course).
- theptip 6mo agoA sacrificial offering to the public, don’t look too closely at the $1B of Polymarket insider trading coming from higher ups in the admin.
- isolay 6mo agoIn ancient times, war was a chance for the poor to become wealthy. Now it has been capitalistically optimized. Now it only makes the rich richer.
- JohnMakin 6mo ago> “When we identified a user trading on classified government information, we referred the matter to the DOJ & cooperated with their investigation. Insider trading has no place on Polymarket. Today’s arrest is proof the system works.” Today's arrest is proof that Polymarket may have incentivized a key decision maker in this operation to make decisions in a way that would let him profit. This is peak levels of head up ass arrogance.
- johnleslie_pm 6mo ago[dead]
- troglodytetrain 6mo agoI am so happy to see that the US government will quickly and immediately prosecute and imprison someone for “insider trading” on Polymarket, while your average Congress member can “trade” with complete impunity.
- sp4cec0wb0y 6mo agoThis only the first and only arrest. There are countless instances of high volume bets being places before the Iran war strikes began. This white house is corrupt.
- lenerdenator 6mo agoA fish rots from the head down.
- madhacker 6mo agoMaybe Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke can get to know Maduro better as cellmate.
- grej 6mo agoorganizations are fractal
- yalogin 6mo agoHis mistake was he bet alone, instead he should have gotten a billionaire friend(s) of the president or his kids involved and bet together. I mean it’s a serious issue and obviously wrong to do.
- flumes_whims_ 6mo agoHope he placed a bet on getting arrested.
- mikewarot 6mo agoHere's the relevant Peter Girnus post: https://x.com/gothburz/status/2047662736255955325 https://x.com/gothburz/status/2047662736255955325 Now I've learned that he tells the truth through parody. It's really hard, emotionally, to read, but important stuff. The corruption starts at the head of the snake. We've proven to be just as corrupt as Russia, and Trump's war of choice is going to do more damage to the US than Putin's mistake invading Ukraine.
- colechristensen 6mo agoWhy's he being charged in federal court instead of a court martial?
- caycep 6mo agospecial forces culture also is corrupt and in need of reform; every officer who is not part of SOCOM and has to deal with their antics and bullshit and fallout thereof knows this.
- KolmogorovComp 6mo agoI’ve never understood why insider insight was forbidden, the point of prediction market is betting on the outcome based on information you have. Is that ‘fair’ for everyone? No! Because no everyone has access to the same level of information. But no one forces you to bet either.
- ATMLOTTOBEER 6mo agoKnower. Thank you. The point of all markets is to aggregate information.
- midtake 6mo agoThe special forces soldier bet on his team's success. He risked his life. His bet would not alter his behavior in anyway incongruous with mission objectives. Is that really that bad if the direction of the bet isn't unethical? He could have died and this would be a non-story, just someone throwing 32k away before they were killed in action. People are focusing on the use of confidential information and calling this insider trading, which is fair, he had knowledge that the trading public did not. But to lump him in with refs who call games wrong on purpose is ridiculous. In one example you are betting on something you want to happen anyway, it is not deception. In the other, you are profiting from deliberate fraud. I think there needs to be some sort of category difference between these two.
- etchalon 6mo agoNo, there doesn't need to be.
- HDThoreaun 6mo agoI think the bigger issue is that he effectively leaked the raid. Now intelligence agencies will be constantly watching the geopolitical questions on prediction markets for big bets. Of course the Trump administration seems to be leaking through prediction markets as well and I doubt they’ll face any consequences.
- Normal_gaussian 6mo agoWhile it seems like an interesting point - a kind of 'doubling down' - its not clear cut at all. Firstly, the dichotomy you presented for the individual is: succeed, live, and make loads of money vs fail, die, and lose a fair chunk. The argument you make with this dichotomy is that the gambling doesn't affect anything. However the reality is that there are many ways for the mission to end - fail, live, lose a fair chunk being notable because when the mission is going sideways the individual becomes incentivised to put themselves and others at greater risk to make a successful outcome more likely. Succeed, live, lose your squad mates, make loads of money becomes more likely as well as fail, live, lose your squad mates. Secondly, insider trading is and always will be a signal for others. If you're only allowed to bet in one direction it becomes a form of information leak - monitor who is liquidating their assets to gamble on outcomes. For any project it becomes a signal to others - if your boss isn't remortgaging to gamble more then you know its time to jump ship. This will in turn have significant effects on outcomes.
- jp0001 6mo agoCount 1 and 2 makes sense. A good lawyer can get 3-5 thrown out in a plea deal.
- roncinephile 6mo agoThis is why you always launder, amateurs. Fences and obfuscation.
- blendo 6mo agoSpecial forces training and force vetting seems astoundingly poor for such an "elite" outfit.