Trump's Stance on Soldier Betting on Maduro's Arrest Appears to Shift, Allies Support Pardon

On April 26, CNN reported that the U.S. Department of Justice has charged U.S. Army Special Forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, accusing him of illegally profiting over $400,000 by betting on a U.S. raid in Venezuela using classified information on the prediction market platform Polymarket. However, Trump seems to have shifted his stance on the matter; upon learning that the soldier bet on Maduro’s downfall, he compared the situation to baseball legend Pete Rose betting on his own team to win, downplaying the issue by stating, ‘It’s like Rose betting on his team to win. If he bet on himself to lose, that would be bad, but he bet on himself to win, and I will look into it.’ Furthermore, given Trump’s support for Rose, at least several of Trump’s allies have expressed that he should pardon the soldier. Trump previously remarked that betting behavior surrounding war-related events makes the current global situation ‘a bit like a casino,’ suggesting that some market trades may have deviated from normal investment logic, relying instead on asymmetric information or even insider knowledge, while also emphasizing that he has ‘never been a staunch supporter of these prediction platforms.’