It'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.
did he leak the information, or just speculate on it? is it leaking classified info when pentagon officials order lots of pizza and thus inform the world that a military operation is being planned?
"A military operation is being planned" is very different from "Maduro will be kidnapped in the next x hours". One can safely assume that Pentagon is always planning a military operation.
Maybe 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?
“Our Office will continue to hold accountable those who misuse confidential or classified information in a way that undermines and exploits our national security.”
But isn’t wire fraud harder to prove than leaking classified facts?
The government is very big. They can have multiple priorities. The Dept of Justice does not provide medical care, education, or anything else you listed -- they prosecute crimes. And using classified military plans for personal gain while potentially putting fellow soldiers at risk seems like a crime that is worth prosecuting.
It 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.
Imagine 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.
I mean, surely everyone in the middle east knew a war was on the horizon. Obviously not the exact plan or day, but it wasn't a secret that usa was gearing up for a war.
Are 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.
unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.
So 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?
By 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.
Kalshi is regulated and trading in this way on Kalshi is explicitly illegal. PolyMarket does not operate under US laws and I don't know if the same insider trading rules are a separate violation on top of just participating.
Nabbing 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.”
This might burst some bubbles but this is absolutely a little guy because anything below a field grade officer (or the CSM sidekick below brigade) is a little guy and a battalion is actually quite low on the food chain.
Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.
He may be a little guy but that doesn't mean that he's a fall guy. The Special Forces at Fort Bragg are a law unto themselves. I've just finished reading The Fort Bragg Cartel and the things some of those guys have been up to, and the leniency of both their commanding officers and the local civilian police toward them, are shocking. Drug smuggling, murder, theft of arms, coming back from deployment with tens of thousands of dollars taped to their persons...not to mention the war crimes.
I read this as "why are they going after a soldier who made $30k when they could be going after guys who made seven figures off of expertly timed trades on going to war with Iran"
Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.
This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.
Zero chance? What odds are you offering, because this bet looks very appealing?
I am guessing that you would not actually go all-in against a penny, and I’m curious to know what implied probability you actually offer. I will see your bet amount as an expression of your confidence level. If you say that you don’t bet, I’ll take that as an indication that you have no confidence, and believe the probability to be something above 50%
Master sergeant is a respectable rank (first of senior NCO) but it’s not exactly a high ranking position. Speaking from AF experience, you’ll have a couple of them or higher in a 50 person squadron, and levels like group/wing command they’re oftentimes among the lowest ranking person in the room.
This is absolutely a low level soldier getting dragged.
According to Google Gemini, there are over 16,000 master sergeants. Might as well be some random, especially when it's literally the president himself, cabinet members, congress, and other cronies directly doing the same and even worse things.
As other comments said, this wasn’t exactly a “little guy” in rank.
He also made it all very obvious and traceable for them through the email addresses he used. From the report it doesn’t appear that he made any effort to conceal his identity or hide his tracks until afterward, by which time it was too late.
I don’t know why people are trying to defend this guy. We should be upset when anyone tries to use confidential information for personal gain. It’s also a security risk if anyone is incentivized to place bets based on confidential info.
I know you’re trying to make a separate point about Congress, but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing. Congress didn’t even have this information at the time.
I haven't seen anyone defend his conduct, but it is natural to discuss his political clout because of this line on TFA:
> Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law
What others are saying, IIUC, is that no reasonable person believes an enlisted soldier (even a senior one) is above the law and that in fact there is a history of them being used as fall guys or scapegoats for people who do enjoy protection on the basis of their social class or government position.
Without this specific statement from the FBI director, then it would be "soldier gets caught doing bad thing" and the other part would be off topic. But the article itself introduces the idea of class and impunity.
Because the path to Rule of Law is not deleting/refusing to enforce all laws.
Rule of Law means no one is above the law. In practice this is an aspiration (in the U.S. and everywhere else) but giving up on that isn’t going to make the world better.
When the history of this administration is written
I often think about how much we can trust history 20-30 years from now. It is hard to trust history from hundreds of years ago, either because it was written by victors or because there just isn't enough material in the first place. I suppose we have the opposite problem now (and in the future) - too much noise and junk, whole bunch of it generated by AI slop - where does one even start?
Everything about this statement is completely wrong.
False, conspiratorial, dogmatic, juvenile.
The arrest and indictment of someone for betting on Polymarket - which has not yet been tested in court - is going to give huge attention and precedence to the likely illegal activities of some of Polymarket shenanigans coming out of the white house.
Edit: if this was political, it would be pushed in the other direction. This is the NY DOJ doing their jobs.
I don't think this is going to be Hacker News fascinating discourse, but the current USA administration is so openly, brazenly, continuously, gleefully corrupt; continuously fire people with ethics and competence and bring in the in-group of equally corrupt ; and have continuously been rewarded for that behaviour; that I feel the OP is merely observationally factual.
The current Executive is 'brazenly criminal', yes, but there is nothing much 'factual; about the OP's comment.
None of this remotely has to do with 'Conservatism', it's certainly not ideological, and it's likely not political either.
This indictment is going to cause a massive headache for White House as they have likely been involved in 'insider trading'.
This is actually regular Justice, finally seeing some movement, to cynically characterize it as otherwise, totally against common sense (aka it's bad for the WH) is just unsound. I think it demonstrates the kind of bubble a lot of people live in, which is maybe understandable in the current climate, where horrible behaviours have gone unpunished. But still. This is the story of a state doj doing their job.
It's by the Southern District of NY and the case will get national attention.
This is a hugely negative thing for the Administration, as District Attorneys, SEC staff, etc. are going to be actively seeking how this could parlay into investigations and indictments of the people in the White House making Polymarket and other speculative bets just before government actions.
There are 100's lawyers reading that right now getting inspired on how they can take action to turn their investigative powers onto whoever those actors are aka family members or associates of those in the White House / Cabinet.
An investigation could be done at the State Level, away from the control of the DoJ, and, if it yields evidence, it wouldn't have to even make it's way through the courts in order to be political destructive.
The suggestion by the OP this has anything to do with ideology or the ruling power throwing one under the bus is ridiculous. Note that the ruling regime isn't above such a thing, but that's not what is happening here because it definitely does not serve their interests - it's the total opposite.
This could turn into a political nightmare that crashes the party.
Edit: if we want to be 'hopefully cynical' - recognize that this could absolutely be the vector that takes the man down, or even many of them. Imagine how many WH, Cabinet Members, family members could get investigated for this and under purvue of state investigators where the investigation can't get shut down.
For everyone saying this isn't some little guy... compared to the administration which is engaging in the same thing, it's a little guy designed to be a distraction.
Authority-wise, a MSG in the army isn't exactly a little guy either. That's quite a senior role. In their battalion they likely head either operations, intelligence or supply.
This isn't joe schlub making side bets here. This is a senior late-career enlisted in an extremely sensitive position violating all of their trust and authority to cash out big.
That MSG works for a Captain or a Lieutenant. If said MSG is good, there might be a future of advising a commanding officer on uniforms and length of grass at increasingly higher echelons. The rank is not newsworthy.
Wilholt'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.
The 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.
Go read a few months worth of the National Review.
Many prominent conservative thinkers are not particularly big fans of Trump. They like portions of his initiatives and policies but not him as a standard bearer, because he does dumb, ill-principled stuff at odds with conservatism.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ can't write two sentences without letting you know how much she disdains Trump, e.g.
I guess I should clarify it to the modern US conservative party. I know there are a few dissenters even there, but 95% of them vote the way he wants and of course we could have impeached Trump and many cabinet officials long ago if they voted that way. They unquestionably enable this administration. I think its fair to say they represent the conservatives broadly, certainly they are the people the nations conservative citizens elected and continue to support.
I 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.
There seems to be a pattern that if someone who was not pre-selected by some elites ends up making their own money (I.e. real 'self-made') they are swiftly attacked by the system. On the other hand, look at Nancy Pelosi; she didn't get into any trouble.
Are people allowed to be self-made anymore?
For me personally, after years of planning and hard work, I once managed to secure myself about $40k of passive income from a blockchain in crypto; this lasted a few years but eventually the founders suspiciously abandoned the entire tech stack (for no reason) and switched to Ethereum; this destroyed the opportunity for me; literally lost that stream entirely. Now, recently, I was able to re-establish a passive income stream of about $10k per year from a non-crypto source; this is from an opportunity I took over 10 years ago... I'm worried about that being taken away somehow.
Oh, and let’s not forget the politicians like Pelosi, the Clintons and many other top Democratic Party politicians, repeatedly engaged in insider trading of stocks, often times using classified information, for multi million dollars profits. Almost never investigated. Practically never convicted.
I 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.
> 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.
I 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.
I 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.
People act like the pervasiveness of insider trading in Congress is an indisputable fact, when there have been only a few trades with suspicious timing, which is similar to what you would expect statistically from 535 wealthier people trading with no insider information. The only case where I feel like insider trading is likely was Richard Burr's sales before COVID.
There have been multiple times where the final vote count was the difference of a handful of votes.
No one is guilting anyone to vote and some will say that neither party represents what they want and that sucks. But ultimately there has to be one side that even if you don't overall like them you would still rather they get elected.
So vote for who you think might be best. And if they have policies you don't agree then contact your representative and say "I voted for you but do not want xyz policy". The more who speak up the better.
I'm not American. And surprise: regardless of your reasons you get judged by the government you put in power, since foreign policy is how the rest of us experience your choices.
And your choices are evidently you're completely okay with the current situation as well.
It’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
This 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
So 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."
He 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
Nice. 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.
so 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
What 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.
Feds 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.
In 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.
Polymarket 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
Insider 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.
So 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.
That's part of the Chesterton's Fence nature of why these markets are bad. We know insider trading is a bad thing for the stock market, so it's policed. These markets, being a post-regulation internet free for all, aren't.
It'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".
Since 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
Why would this be civilian versus the business of a JAG?
It'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.
Well, a lot of people got killed this way, too.
did he leak the information, or just speculate on it? is it leaking classified info when pentagon officials order lots of pizza and thus inform the world that a military operation is being planned?
"A military operation is being planned" is very different from "Maduro will be kidnapped in the next x hours". One can safely assume that Pentagon is always planning a military operation.
Yes, it seems in this case an adversary who was paying attention could have learned something very, very valuable.
If that happened, could they retroactively classify it?
Maybe 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?
Yeah the DoJ proclaims,
“Our Office will continue to hold accountable those who misuse confidential or classified information in a way that undermines and exploits our national security.”
But isn’t wire fraud harder to prove than leaking classified facts?
It seems strange, but that must be why I'm not a lawyer :p
You’re just seeing, clearly, the priorities of the US.
Is it helping sick citizens? No. Is it feeding the hungry? No. Free education, housing the un housed or protecting the environment? No, no , no.
To be perfectly clear, it’s not giving vets the benefits they deserve or keeping soldiers safe either.
Money. The priority is money.
Getting it. And making sure those that don’t have it don’t get it.
The government is very big. They can have multiple priorities. The Dept of Justice does not provide medical care, education, or anything else you listed -- they prosecute crimes. And using classified military plans for personal gain while potentially putting fellow soldiers at risk seems like a crime that is worth prosecuting.
It 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.
> would be highly demoralizing
Those people should quit. Sour grapes isn’t an excuse for putting others’ lives at risk.
Imagine 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.
There 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).
> derivative markets will exist up to the divine wrath of god
We already bet on the weather.
I mean, surely everyone in the middle east knew a war was on the horizon. Obviously not the exact plan or day, but it wasn't a secret that usa was gearing up for a war.
They should have kept an eye on the prediction markets.
Or, your brigade’s master sergeant needs the invasion to hit on the 28th rather than Mar 1st.
Are 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.
From 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.
So 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?
By 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.
These two videos might be of some help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A654vzQTGbQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN4njIQcSR4
Kalshi is regulated and trading in this way on Kalshi is explicitly illegal. PolyMarket does not operate under US laws and I don't know if the same insider trading rules are a separate violation on top of just participating.
Nabbing 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/
> nabbing the little guy
Politics aside, he isn't a "little guy". He apparently holds the rank of master sergeant. That's a senior battalion-level role and somewhat political.
This isn't some random E-4 getting dragged.
This might burst some bubbles but this is absolutely a little guy because anything below a field grade officer (or the CSM sidekick below brigade) is a little guy and a battalion is actually quite low on the food chain.
Yes, there are some hard working NCOs and junior Os out there that make shit happen, but they are not the decision makers and make for great fall guys when shit hits the fan.
He may be a little guy but that doesn't mean that he's a fall guy. The Special Forces at Fort Bragg are a law unto themselves. I've just finished reading The Fort Bragg Cartel and the things some of those guys have been up to, and the leniency of both their commanding officers and the local civilian police toward them, are shocking. Drug smuggling, murder, theft of arms, coming back from deployment with tens of thousands of dollars taped to their persons...not to mention the war crimes.
Compared to a member of US Congress, or the senior executive branch, or the CEO class, they’re still nobody and the “little guy”.
Not that it’s defensible behavior.
Is he important enough to get a presidential pardon? That's how you know whether he's a "little guy".
To be fair, that bar is quite a bit lower these days, but still..
What's the going rate for pardons these days?
I read this as "why are they going after a soldier who made $30k when they could be going after guys who made seven figures off of expertly timed trades on going to war with Iran"
He profited $400K.
Pursuing this case doesn’t mean they’re excluding other cases. If you read the article this case was very clear because he made amateur moves and didn’t conceal his identity at all.
This was an easy nab. All leaks should be pursued regardless of who did it.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Trump's insiders own't be investigated
He's actually too proud about it to hide it.
A 400 million plane "donation"
There is zero chance this escalates further off this guy.
Zero chance? What odds are you offering, because this bet looks very appealing?
I am guessing that you would not actually go all-in against a penny, and I’m curious to know what implied probability you actually offer. I will see your bet amount as an expression of your confidence level. If you say that you don’t bet, I’ll take that as an indication that you have no confidence, and believe the probability to be something above 50%
You could place a prediction bet probably.
Careful, you'll have Ka$hPatel wondering who to throw under a bus just for the giggles, the p0wn, and the extra $100 for his stripper lounge charity.
> he isn’t a little guy
His salary this year was probably about $118k on standard pay scales. I’m not sure what your definition of little guy is, but to me that qualifies
(Not trying to be condescending to anybody here, that’s not far off my salary and I’d definitely call myself the little guy)
Master sergeant is a respectable rank (first of senior NCO) but it’s not exactly a high ranking position. Speaking from AF experience, you’ll have a couple of them or higher in a 50 person squadron, and levels like group/wing command they’re oftentimes among the lowest ranking person in the room.
This is absolutely a low level soldier getting dragged.
They fired 4-star generals on a whim. The military is expected to be as loyal as the rest.
If he was "behind the fence", at most he would be a team sergeant or maybe even assistant team sergeant. Talking 4-6 members max.
A master sergeant is not remotely significant in the world of politics.
According to Google Gemini, there are over 16,000 master sergeants. Might as well be some random, especially when it's literally the president himself, cabinet members, congress, and other cronies directly doing the same and even worse things.
One soldier being arrested does not prevent others from being arrested. If anything, it sets a precedent.
Yesterday, people could justifiably say that betting on polymarket had essentially no consequences.
Today, we learned there can be consequences.
If in a year’s time this is the only person to ever be charged, that’s a different story.
Per Goodfellas, "Paulie and the gang" ended up in jail while Henry Hill received witness protection. So, it wasn't just for show
They don't call 'em cannon fodder for nothin'!
As other comments said, this wasn’t exactly a “little guy” in rank.
He also made it all very obvious and traceable for them through the email addresses he used. From the report it doesn’t appear that he made any effort to conceal his identity or hide his tracks until afterward, by which time it was too late.
Well, if people in Congress, the Supreme Court, the administration, etc. don't have to conceal their "activities", why should this guy?
He wasn't a "little guy" but apparently his only mistake was not being high enough.
I don’t know why people are trying to defend this guy. We should be upset when anyone tries to use confidential information for personal gain. It’s also a security risk if anyone is incentivized to place bets based on confidential info.
I know you’re trying to make a separate point about Congress, but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing. Congress didn’t even have this information at the time.
> don’t know why people are trying to defend this guy
It’s a hot take. Nobody gets upvoted for the measured view that this man is a criminal and so are others.
I haven't seen anyone defend his conduct, but it is natural to discuss his political clout because of this line on TFA:
> Today’s announcement makes clear no one is above the law
What others are saying, IIUC, is that no reasonable person believes an enlisted soldier (even a senior one) is above the law and that in fact there is a history of them being used as fall guys or scapegoats for people who do enjoy protection on the basis of their social class or government position.
Without this specific statement from the FBI director, then it would be "soldier gets caught doing bad thing" and the other part would be off topic. But the article itself introduces the idea of class and impunity.
Nobody is defending this person.
> ...but it’s silly to try to turn this into a class warfare thing.
You can ignore the class warfare but the class warfare isn't ignoring you/your country.
Because the path to Rule of Law is not deleting/refusing to enforce all laws.
Rule of Law means no one is above the law. In practice this is an aspiration (in the U.S. and everywhere else) but giving up on that isn’t going to make the world better.
When the history of this administration is written
I often think about how much we can trust history 20-30 years from now. It is hard to trust history from hundreds of years ago, either because it was written by victors or because there just isn't enough material in the first place. I suppose we have the opposite problem now (and in the future) - too much noise and junk, whole bunch of it generated by AI slop - where does one even start?
Everything about this statement is completely wrong.
False, conspiratorial, dogmatic, juvenile.
The arrest and indictment of someone for betting on Polymarket - which has not yet been tested in court - is going to give huge attention and precedence to the likely illegal activities of some of Polymarket shenanigans coming out of the white house.
Edit: if this was political, it would be pushed in the other direction. This is the NY DOJ doing their jobs.
...
I don't think this is going to be Hacker News fascinating discourse, but the current USA administration is so openly, brazenly, continuously, gleefully corrupt; continuously fire people with ethics and competence and bring in the in-group of equally corrupt ; and have continuously been rewarded for that behaviour; that I feel the OP is merely observationally factual.
The current Executive is 'brazenly criminal', yes, but there is nothing much 'factual; about the OP's comment.
None of this remotely has to do with 'Conservatism', it's certainly not ideological, and it's likely not political either.
This indictment is going to cause a massive headache for White House as they have likely been involved in 'insider trading'.
This is actually regular Justice, finally seeing some movement, to cynically characterize it as otherwise, totally against common sense (aka it's bad for the WH) is just unsound. I think it demonstrates the kind of bubble a lot of people live in, which is maybe understandable in the current climate, where horrible behaviours have gone unpunished. But still. This is the story of a state doj doing their job.
What? Military trials are not necessarily public.
It's by the Southern District of NY and the case will get national attention.
This is a hugely negative thing for the Administration, as District Attorneys, SEC staff, etc. are going to be actively seeking how this could parlay into investigations and indictments of the people in the White House making Polymarket and other speculative bets just before government actions.
There are 100's lawyers reading that right now getting inspired on how they can take action to turn their investigative powers onto whoever those actors are aka family members or associates of those in the White House / Cabinet.
An investigation could be done at the State Level, away from the control of the DoJ, and, if it yields evidence, it wouldn't have to even make it's way through the courts in order to be political destructive.
The suggestion by the OP this has anything to do with ideology or the ruling power throwing one under the bus is ridiculous. Note that the ruling regime isn't above such a thing, but that's not what is happening here because it definitely does not serve their interests - it's the total opposite.
This could turn into a political nightmare that crashes the party.
Edit: if we want to be 'hopefully cynical' - recognize that this could absolutely be the vector that takes the man down, or even many of them. Imagine how many WH, Cabinet Members, family members could get investigated for this and under purvue of state investigators where the investigation can't get shut down.
This was charged by DOJ not under a military tribunal
For everyone saying this isn't some little guy... compared to the administration which is engaging in the same thing, it's a little guy designed to be a distraction.
Authority-wise, a MSG in the army isn't exactly a little guy either. That's quite a senior role. In their battalion they likely head either operations, intelligence or supply.
This isn't joe schlub making side bets here. This is a senior late-career enlisted in an extremely sensitive position violating all of their trust and authority to cash out big.
That MSG works for a Captain or a Lieutenant. If said MSG is good, there might be a future of advising a commanding officer on uniforms and length of grass at increasingly higher echelons. The rank is not newsworthy.
Wilholt'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.
The 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.
Go read a few months worth of the National Review.
Many prominent conservative thinkers are not particularly big fans of Trump. They like portions of his initiatives and policies but not him as a standard bearer, because he does dumb, ill-principled stuff at odds with conservatism.
Peggy Noonan of the WSJ can't write two sentences without letting you know how much she disdains Trump, e.g.
I guess I should clarify it to the modern US conservative party. I know there are a few dissenters even there, but 95% of them vote the way he wants and of course we could have impeached Trump and many cabinet officials long ago if they voted that way. They unquestionably enable this administration. I think its fair to say they represent the conservatives broadly, certainly they are the people the nations conservative citizens elected and continue to support.
I 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.
There seems to be a pattern that if someone who was not pre-selected by some elites ends up making their own money (I.e. real 'self-made') they are swiftly attacked by the system. On the other hand, look at Nancy Pelosi; she didn't get into any trouble.
Are people allowed to be self-made anymore?
For me personally, after years of planning and hard work, I once managed to secure myself about $40k of passive income from a blockchain in crypto; this lasted a few years but eventually the founders suspiciously abandoned the entire tech stack (for no reason) and switched to Ethereum; this destroyed the opportunity for me; literally lost that stream entirely. Now, recently, I was able to re-establish a passive income stream of about $10k per year from a non-crypto source; this is from an opportunity I took over 10 years ago... I'm worried about that being taken away somehow.
Oh, and let’s not forget the politicians like Pelosi, the Clintons and many other top Democratic Party politicians, repeatedly engaged in insider trading of stocks, often times using classified information, for multi million dollars profits. Almost never investigated. Practically never convicted.
Yes, please, by all means with full transparency and public trials.
Then clear the docket because you're going to need a lot of investigators to even begin on the Trump administration.
Here's a recent article from the American Bar Association on the rampant and on-going f*ckery.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/resources/human-righ...
I 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.
> 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.
I 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.
I 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.
Maybe we just don’t want prediction markets.
You spelled gambling platform wrong. This attempt to rename gambling websites is infuriating. I hope these people get meaningful prison time
We 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.
There’s 109 comments on this submission of the news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47883108
How many people in congress made the exact same bet on the exact same information, and for them it's "legal?"
People act like the pervasiveness of insider trading in Congress is an indisputable fact, when there have been only a few trades with suspicious timing, which is similar to what you would expect statistically from 535 wealthier people trading with no insider information. The only case where I feel like insider trading is likely was Richard Burr's sales before COVID.
None, because Congress wasn't informed of the Maduro raid until afterwards?
Usually there is this gang of 6 or gang of 8 who is still kept informed.
We have finally figured out the purpose of the War Powers Act.
We aren’t talking about in official capacity
It is legal and until we vote for people who will outlaw it we only have ourselves to blame.
Easy to say, hard to do, when your two "choices" at the ballot box represent slightly different groups of wealthy donors.
Vote in primaries. Also wealthy donors probably care less about whether a candidate can self-enrich with insider trading.
Ah enlightened centrism rears its head again. Remember folks: at all points both sides are exactly the same /s.
If you guilt me into voting, I'll probably vote for somebody you don't like.
Isn't it better that I don't vote?
No. 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.
There have been multiple times where the final vote count was the difference of a handful of votes. No one is guilting anyone to vote and some will say that neither party represents what they want and that sucks. But ultimately there has to be one side that even if you don't overall like them you would still rather they get elected. So vote for who you think might be best. And if they have policies you don't agree then contact your representative and say "I voted for you but do not want xyz policy". The more who speak up the better.
"better" for whom?
I'm not American. And surprise: regardless of your reasons you get judged by the government you put in power, since foreign policy is how the rest of us experience your choices.
And your choices are evidently you're completely okay with the current situation as well.
Everyone knows how the parties are different
Its valid to be more annoyed by the ways that they’re the same
your cause is not my cause, its better for the viability of your preferred party if you remember that
I think you misspelled “the White House”
“Any clearance holders thinking of cashing in their access and knowledge for personal gain will be held accountable”
Yeah right.
It’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
Congress is protected but soliders arent from profiting. Why are laws so biased?
This 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
The first group makes laws, the second group doesn't.
Perfectly 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.
This is also illegal for any rich or powerful service members.
Cha-Ching! I bet $2000 that this guy was going to get charged.
I thought the names in the opening were the people being charged. Then I realized they were the prosecutors.
So 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.
He 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
Nice. 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.
Rules for thee but not for me.
Who is the "thee" and "me" in this scenario?
The guy who got arrested is “thee” the members of the White House admin and Congress making bets are the “me”
Everyone's a grifter these days.
Silly prole, insider trading is a white collar crime reserved for your betters. Time to learn your place.
Associated DOJ release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-soldier-charged-usin...
so 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
Since 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.
They should run for Congress
What 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-polymarke...
Feds 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.
This doesn't seem like a simple white collar crime. If the military are betting on the operations they will carry it's virtually espionage.
Wouldn’t that make insider trading virtually corporate espionage?
Rules for thee not for me
> Goes to show how elites play by a different set of rules.
Epstein said the same, and yet nobody went out to protest.
In 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.
Isn'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?
Polymarket 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
Insider 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.
Sure, 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.
I 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.
How is this illegal? Polymarket isn't a US-regulated market.
From 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
So 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.
That's part of the Chesterton's Fence nature of why these markets are bad. We know insider trading is a bad thing for the stock market, so it's policed. These markets, being a post-regulation internet free for all, aren't.
It'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".
It 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!
Not true, they lobbied very hard to be regulated under the CFTC because of its more relaxed rules
Polymarket isn't being accused or charged with wrongdoing.
They directed the right size bri...consulting fee to Jr.