WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered service members not to use nonpublic information to place bets on prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, according to a memo reviewed by the Associated Press.
“Our enemies watch movements in these markets,” Hegseth wrote in the one-page memo dated Tuesday. When troops or Pentagon employees trade on a military outcome, “they create a signal.”
The directive covers both classified information and unclassified information that hasn’t been made public. Violators could face administrative punishment and criminal charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice or federal law.
It comes months after a U.S. Special Forces soldier involved in the operation to capture then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was charged with using classified details of the mission to win more than $400,000 on Polymarket. CBS News first reported the memo.
Sources: Associated Press via KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: TSGT CEDRIC H. RUDISILL, USAF / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
