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Can you provide a reference? From a Reuters article: > prosecutors said Van Dyke bet more than $33,000 on Polymarket between December 27, 2025, and January 2,

Can you provide a reference? From a Reuters article: > prosecutors said Van Dyke bet more than $33,000 on Polymarket between December 27, 2025, and January 2, 2026, that Maduro would soon be out of office and that U.S. forces would soon enter Venezuela Maduro was taken on January 3. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-soldier-charged-over-maduro-removal-insider-bets-released-250000-bond-2026-04-24/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-soldier-charged-...

themafia 6mo ago
Unless someone knows the bets are placed by an insider how does this create any sort of risk?
- HDThoreaun 6mo ago
  Incentivizes him to take on more risk to ensure mission success. When someone bets 32k that a political opponent of the US is going to be kidnapped I think its fair to say some will assume it was placed by an insider.
  - b0rtb0rt 6mo ago
    he was more incentivized for the mission to succeed? how horrible!
    - acdha 6mo ago
      He was incentivized to win the bet. The military does not want people to have outside loyalties because that creates problems any time they’re not perfectly aligned – for example, if they had orders to minimize team or civilian casualties you don’t want this guy starting a messy firefight because he’s thinking the target is getting away and willing to risk someone else’s lives for half a million dollars. You also have to think about leaning information: if people do this, bodyguards around the world are going to monitor betting markets looking for unexplained changes. The military doesn’t like anything which can leak timing information since that increases the risk of a mission failing.
  - themafia 6mo ago
    What exactly would that look like from the position of an individual low rank unit? What would $32k of risk look like on a foreign battle field? I'm struggling to understand this prerogative. What would be far larger source of risk is if they bet _against_ the operation and then personally sabotaged it. That's far more understandable but it's not what happened here. It apparently and sadly needs to be said on Hacker News, I'm not defending him, and he should be punished, but I genuinely can't apprehend the risk assessment logic here.
    - HDThoreaun 6mo ago
      Easy to think of a scenario where he should stand down but instead continues with the mission, risking the lives of his team mates, or maybe civilians.
    - mizzao 6mo ago
      He's a master sergeant, once of the highest enlisted ranks, involved in planning the mission. Not low rank at all.
      - pempem 6mo ago
        He's low enough that he felt he must go along with kidnapping the leader of a foreign country
    - throwaway85825 6mo ago
      A lot of people were involved with the mission that were not themselves directly endangered but could still stand to profit.
- runamok 6mo ago
  I mean just the fact that bets are being placed could have tipped off the target and made them prepared.

themafia 6mo ago

Unless someone knows the bets are placed by an insider how does this create any sort of risk?

HDThoreaun 6mo ago
Incentivizes him to take on more risk to ensure mission success. When someone bets 32k that a political opponent of the US is going to be kidnapped I think its fair to say some will assume it was placed by an insider.
- b0rtb0rt 6mo ago
  he was more incentivized for the mission to succeed? how horrible!
  - acdha 6mo ago
    He was incentivized to win the bet. The military does not want people to have outside loyalties because that creates problems any time they’re not perfectly aligned – for example, if they had orders to minimize team or civilian casualties you don’t want this guy starting a messy firefight because he’s thinking the target is getting away and willing to risk someone else’s lives for half a million dollars. You also have to think about leaning information: if people do this, bodyguards around the world are going to monitor betting markets looking for unexplained changes. The military doesn’t like anything which can leak timing information since that increases the risk of a mission failing.
- themafia 6mo ago
  What exactly would that look like from the position of an individual low rank unit? What would $32k of risk look like on a foreign battle field? I'm struggling to understand this prerogative. What would be far larger source of risk is if they bet _against_ the operation and then personally sabotaged it. That's far more understandable but it's not what happened here. It apparently and sadly needs to be said on Hacker News, I'm not defending him, and he should be punished, but I genuinely can't apprehend the risk assessment logic here.
  - HDThoreaun 6mo ago
    Easy to think of a scenario where he should stand down but instead continues with the mission, risking the lives of his team mates, or maybe civilians.
  - mizzao 6mo ago
    He's a master sergeant, once of the highest enlisted ranks, involved in planning the mission. Not low rank at all.
    - pempem 6mo ago
      He's low enough that he felt he must go along with kidnapping the leader of a foreign country
  - throwaway85825 6mo ago
    A lot of people were involved with the mission that were not themselves directly endangered but could still stand to profit.
runamok 6mo ago
I mean just the fact that bets are being placed could have tipped off the target and made them prepared.