The War Casino

Gambling on military operations erodes ethical standards.

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Issac Luna (Olvera) is a former US Marine Corps officer who fought for the Ukrainian military after the full-scale Russian invasion. He is the author of the book Reckoning Dreams and Fire, a memoir about his experience in Ukraine and other battles. Mr. Luna remains based in Ukraine. Follow him on X.

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When I lived in Las Vegas, I worked in casinos—the Flamingo, the MGM Grand, the Bellagio.

One night I was at a bar with Dave, a coworker about 30 years older than me. As we talked, he drank whiskey with water and played video poker.

I asked him what was the most he’d ever won. “Eighty thousand,” he said. I asked if that offset the losses he’d accumulated over time. He didn’t hesitate: “No way.”

I thought his habit was stupid, but I kept it to myself. Gambling is a personal vice. It was none of my business. But there’s another case of gambling I can’t ignore.

Gannon Van Dyke is also a gambler, but of a different kind. Using a VPN, he placed bets on Polymarket that Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, would be out of power by January 31, 2026. He put more than a third of his salary on that one hand.

In early January, Maduro was indeed deposed, and the wager paid out more than tenfold. Van Dyke made about $400,000, moved the winnings through a foreign crypto vault, and asked Polymarket to delete his account.

Claude Shannon, a mathematician widely credited as the founder of information theory, was once asked what type of information is best. “Insider information,” he answered. Van Dyke wasn’t just any market participant. He was a senior soldier in the US Army Special Forces, involved in the operation to capture Maduro. He had exactly the kind of information Shannon was talking about.

Van Dyke is now charged with illegally using confidential government information for personal gain. The military disciplines people every day, often not for violating laws, but for violating standards. The court will determine his legal guilt, but he is absolutely guilty of violating the trust and confidence placed upon him. His actions were unethical. They were dishonorable.

Systems that trade on uncertainty—casinos, financial markets, sports—are supposed to limit the use of unfair advantages. That is why insider trading is illegal. Yet we are accustomed to these abuses of access by business executives, by coaches and athletes, and by members of Congress. Each case erodes trust in the system and those running it. People question its legitimacy, and they stop participating in it.

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The United States maintains the most expensive military in the world, and Americans trust the military more than any other public institution. The citizenry funds it with the expectation that it will operate with discipline, professionalism, and ethical restraint.

To maintain that trust, the military operates under a separate system of rules. During my time in uniform I was constantly reminded of the standards—legal or not: “Don’t do drugs”, “pay your bills”, “get a haircut”, “wear a belt” (really!). The military even has a separate system of justice to deal with violations of these standards, all to enforce discipline and, in part, to protect the trust borrowed from the public.

As a noncommissioned officer, or NCO, with almost two decades in uniform, Gannon Van Dyke would have recited the NCO Creed many times. Part of it reads: “I will not use my grade or position to attain pleasure, profit, or personal safety.” By converting his trust and confidence into financial gain, he not only violated this oath, but betrayed the social contract Americans have with their military.

This is not only about ethics; it is also about our collective security. Markets are information systems, made up of data points. Adversaries do not require access to a full intelligence picture. They only need fragments—signals. They collect these bits of information and aggregate them to form a more comprehensive and actionable picture.

Operational security is not only about defending tangible assets, but also about protecting these subtle indicators from our adversaries. Van Dyke’s bet was a signal. He created it. The platform broadcasted it. Iran and Russia almost certainly exploited it.

There is nothing new about trying to profit from a military outcome. During the American Civil War, financiers and commodity traders speculated on Union versus Confederate victory: cotton prices, gold, railroad stocks, and government bonds all moved based on battlefield news. What is new is the infrastructure that makes this behavior scalable. Platforms like Polymarket turn war, elections, and geopolitical crises into tradable instruments.

But not all information should be aggregated, and not all events should be turned into markets—certainly not by soldiers participating in them. We already have the frameworks to deal with gambling, national security, and insider trading; they should be applied here.

We have come to accept ethical disappointments in other parts of government. We expect them from politicians, even assuming they’re unavoidable. But we must not accept them from the military. For those who deal in life or death on our behalf, the standard must be one of ethical behavior, not merely legality.

Whether or not US Army Master Sergeant Gannon Van Dyke is guilty, his case should be straightforward. So should his punishment. Given that his actions were dishonorable, he should be demoted and receive a dishonorable discharge from the Service. Anything less signals that this kind of behavior is acceptable.

Like my old colleague Dave, Van Dyke may have had one bet that paid big, but when all the factors are considered, he is a net loser. And if such actions are treated lightly, we all lose.

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