Politics

From Iran to Paris weather: Alleged prediction market violations start stacking up

Published

2 months ago

April 24, 2026

Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are quickly becoming an economic and political force, accruing multi-billion dollar valuations and drawing support from key officials in the Trump administration.

But backlash to the platforms is spreading — in Washington and in state capitals — with accusations of insider trading following White House military action in Venezuela and Iran and dogging several midterm election campaigns.

Fault lines over who is in charge of regulation are already emerging, with several frontline Democrats pushing to rein in the companies. In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order barring appointed state officials from using insider information to place bets on prediction markets. Regulation discussions are ongoing in other states, including Arizona and Massachusetts.

Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, meanwhile, is an adviser for both Kalshi and Polymarket. And both companies are spending big to win over the country’s political class, with Polymarket opening a pop-up bar on K Street, among other efforts. Both platforms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here are some of the most recent incidents that have piqued the anxiety of state and federal lawmakers.

People gather at a government-organized event to watch former President Nicolas Maduro and first lady Cilia Flores appear in a New York court on a screen in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 26, 2026.

The capture of Nicolás Maduro

Federal authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of a U.S. Army special forces soldier they accused of using confidential information to place more than a dozen bets on Polymarket tied to the January capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old soldier who helped plan the Caracas operation, spent roughly $33,000 on the bets, earning more than $400,000 in payouts, the Justice Department said. Authorities charged him with unlawfully using confidential government information for personal gain, among other alleged offenses.

The operation saw U.S. forces capture Maduro overnight in his bedroom, before flying the longtime Venezuelan leader to New York City to face narco-terrorism charges.

Van Dyke’s alleged actions took advantage of that mission, the government officials argue.

“Our men and women in uniform are trusted with classified information in order to accomplish their mission as safely and effectively as possible, and are prohibited from using this highly sensitive information for personal financial gain,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement Thursday. “Widespread access to prediction markets is a relatively new phenomenon, but federal laws protecting national security information fully apply.”

A woman member of the Basij paramilitary, affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, holds her gun and an Iranian flag during a state-organized rally in support of the supreme leader marking National Girl's Day in Tehran, Iran, on April 17, 2026.

U.S.-Iran ceasefire

In the hours before President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran in early April, at least 50 newly created Polymarket accounts spent thousands betting on a temporary peace, according to an Associated Press report.

One account, created just 12 minutes before Trump’s Truth Social announcement, made $48,500 on a $31,908 bet that a ceasefire would occur. Another cashed out for a profit of $200,000, the AP reported.

Polymarket also took heat after the U.S.’s initial strikes on Iran, with “six suspected insiders” placing bets on the attacks just before they took place, according to Blockchain company Bubblemaps, taking home more than $1 million.

Israeli authorities, meanwhile, charged two people in February for using classified information to place bets about military operations on Polymarket, according to NPR.

The U.S. Capitol building is seen April 20, 2026.

Congressional bets

On Wednesday, Kalshi announced that it was suspending three 2026 congressional candidates from the platform for betting on their own races. Minnesota Democrat Matthew Klein, Texas Republican Ezekiel Enriquez and Virginia Senate candidate Mark Moran were each given five-year bans and faced fines or penalties ranging from roughly $500 to more than $6,000.

Klein, who is running to replace outgoing House lawmaker Angie Craig in Minnesota’s 2nd District, issued an apology on X.

“This was a mistake, and I apologize,” he wrote. “My experience, like many other Minnesotans, points to the need for clearer rules and regulations for these types of markets.”

Enriquez has not appeared to publicly comment on his wager or suspension.

Moran, a former “FBoy Island” contestant who is running a long-shot bid to challenge Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) in Virginia, took a different tack, writing on X that he wanted to be caught.

“I traded $100 on myself, knowing this would happen (also knowing that I wouldn’t be vying for the democratic nomination) and the attention it would create to highlight how this company is destroying young men and as Senator I will go after Kalshi and impose significant penalties on them – 25% – a vice tax – to pay down our national debt,” he said.

A man on a bicycle rides on the flooded banks of the Seine next to the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Feb. 25, 2026.

Playing with Mother Nature

Several Polymarket traders made thousands of dollars in profits for accurately predicting sudden, anomalous spikes in the temperature at Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airport April 15, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Météo-France, the country’s weather service, is now investigating the incident, which could be tied to tampering.

Jimmy Donaldson, the popular YouTube video maker who goes by MrBeast, is seen at an MLS soccer match between Inter Miami and CF Montreal on March 10, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

MrBeast’s editor

In February, Kalshi reported Artem Kaptur, an editor for MrBeast, one of the world’s biggest influencers and most popular YouTube creators, to federal authorities for allegedly trading “on material, non-public information he obtained because of his employment” regarding the celebrity’s YouTube videos.

Kalshi suspended Kaptur from its platform for two years and imposed a financial penalty of more than $20,000. He was fired in March.

“Beast Industries has no tolerance for this behavior, whether by contestants or our own employees,” MrBeast’s company wroteat the time.

Politics

How I failed to make it to my first World Cup match

Published

32 minutes ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

I’ve been reporting on the obstacles ticketholders will have navigating America’s balkanized public transit system. But on the way to my first ever FIFA World Cup match in Toronto, extreme weather tripped me up as I tried to leave New York City on Thursday night.

Now I’m missing Canada playing Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first World Cup game ever played in the land my ancestors left France for in the 1600s. Blue Light News is also out $627.11 for a nonrefundable hotel room.

For a fan who saved up to attend a match, this would be a devastating setback.

A lot of the coverage about World Cup weather, particularly high heat, has focused on players and fans in the stadiums. But the weather also threatens to keep people away from the matches entirely.

My problem was a wall of thunderstorms marching across the continent. About 250 flights have been canceled leaving New York City’s three major airports since yesterday, according to FlightAware. Most of those nixed flights were at LaGuardia Airport, where I sat on a runway for some two hours last evening before being told to go home. Another flight scheduled for this morning out of Newark Liberty International Airport was canceled before I even went to bed.

Flight problems were not even at the top of the transit worries I’ve been paying attention to.

For several years, officials in New York and New Jersey — which are co-hosting tournament games to be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — have been gearing up for a surge of fans from around the world. Unhelpfully, summer 2024 turned out to be a terrible season for train travel in the region because of electrical problems tied in part to heat but also aging infrastructure.

Now, that same stretch of tracks is being counted on to get tens of thousands of fans to matches. Even before a heat wave hit the city, there was a rash of incidents, including a brush fire in New Jersey in May and several fires and electric problems at New York Penn Station, the nation’s busiest train hall.

New Jersey officials have buses and boats on standby to help move fans to or from matches and some lawmakers from both parties are pressuring the Trump administration to keep an eye on things to make sure they don’t go off the rails.

But there isn’t much he can do to stop a storm from raining on the world’s parade.

Politics

The Epic Story of How Trump Seized the World Cup

Published

2 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

“I was undecided with whether I never wanted to see these people ever again, because we had a pretty good idea of what had happened,” said former U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati about a stunning FIFA vote that handed the World Cup to Qatar over a favored American bid. “Or if I want to start bidding the next hour.”

Read the fullinside story of how FIFA’s rejection of a U.S. effort to host the 2022 World Cup sparked bitterness, indictments, a reorganization of soccer’s governing body and, ultimately, a North American World Cup.