05/17/2026: Betting on War, The Knowledge, Christopher Nolan

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1:09As long as there have been wars, there have been war profiteers. But never quite like this. Tonight, new evidence that betters, including a U.S. soldier, may have profited by using inside information to wager on when and how military operations will unfold. A soldier using classified intelligence to trade. Unprecedented. There is nothing to compare that to. This is a new kind of insider trading. On ancient roads in London, a very modern battle is brewing. If we do a left hand, the goldsmith's hole. Black cabs will soon be competing with artificial intelligence-powered autonomous taxis. But as we found out, London's cabbies aren't about to hand over their keys.

1:55Your knowledge is better than what a Google map will tell you to go. Oh, don't make me laugh. Seriously, you know. It's like comparing a hot dog vendor to a Gordon Ramsay. I feel a real responsibility to try and get as much on screen for the audience as possible. Action! Christopher Nolan is one of the great directors of our time. Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, Interstellar. And next, The Odyssey. I mean, it was the hardest movie I've ever done, by far. I mean, not even close. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Scott Pelley. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Bill Whitaker.

2:44Those stories and, in our last minute, Nate Bargetze with something funny about America. Tonight on 60 Minutes.

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3:49So what are you waiting for? Play Chamba Casino. And enter for your chance to win. Let's Chamba G. New purchase necessary. PGW Group. Void were prohibited by law. CTs and Cs. 21 Plus. Sponsored by Chamba Casino. The war with Iran and the U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have carried the usual hallmarks of conflict. Soldiers, strategy, casualties, cost. But they've also been accompanied by a new feature, betting on war. This year alone, more than a billion dollars has been staked online on military decisions and outcomes. As if they were wagering on football games or Oscar winners, bettors all over the globe have taken positions, some suspiciously timed and with information seemingly too specific for a civilian outsider, on when and how an attack might happen, even the fate of world leaders.

4:38It's created a whole new category of insider trading. As long as there have been wars, there have been war profiteers. but never quite like this. Cloaked in night, shrouded in secrecy, U.S. Special Operations Forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3rd. He was taken to the U.S. to face drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges. We need to bring him to the other courthouse without blocking his way, please. As it turned out, the president of Venezuela wasn't the only figure in the operation who would find himself confronting federal charges. U.S. Army soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was involved in the planning and execution of the Venezuela mission, was charged last month with using classified intelligence to place bets based on when the surprise raid would unfold.

5:28If the allegations are true, this is one of the worst betrayals of trust in this area that I can remember and possibly ever. Americans should feel confident that the most important little agency they've probably never heard of is on the job. Now a private lawyer in Washington, Rob Schwartz, until last year, worked for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency policing fraud and insider trading. A soldier using classified intelligence to trade. Unprecedented. Classified intelligence that he knew about because he helped plan and to execute the mission. There is nothing to compare that to.

6:09The Justice Department alleges Van Dyke made a series of wagers totaling roughly $34 ,000, including a half dozen the day before the raid. He ended up netting more than$400 ,000. According to the indictment, Van Dyke immediately withdrew his profit, then tried to delete his betting account on Polymarket, the world's biggest online prediction market. The 38-year-old Army Master Sargent has pleaded not guilty. Polymarket says it cooperated with law enforcement. If you are a corporate executive and you're privy to non-public business information, you go trade on that, that's insider trading. Everybody knows that.

6:50But the same thing exists in prediction markets where this soldier is alleged to have traded. You're saying different contexts from what we usually think. Two guys at the golf course are winking and whispering and tipping each other off, but this is still meeting the definition of insider trading? Exactly right. This is a new kind of insider trading. Spiking in popularity, prediction markets, including Polymarket, offer wagers on the likelihood of future events. Will the Dodgers win the World Series? Will Jesus return in 2026? For that matter, in a 60 Minutes interview, would President Trump say the word trillion more than 10 times.

7:30Turned out that one didn't pay off. But lately, another kind of wager has found popularity. What will happen in military conflicts? Dates of attack. Will an airspace close? Will enriched uranium change hands? You can bet on it. You can also bet on this. Insiders, people holding non-public information, will be laying down their money too. In the U.S., it's prohibited to make military bets on platforms like Polymarket, though it's easy to find digital workarounds, as Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly did. Here's what's more astounding than the existence of military bets, how often they pay off. It's alarming to see a culture around betting on war.

8:14Michelle Kendler Kretsch and her team at the Anti-Corruption Data Collective examined Polymarket bets on military outcomes. She looked specifically at long-shot wagers, bets with less than 35 % odds. Despite being underdogs, they won more than they lost, a telltale sign, she says, of, quote, systemic insider trading. Give me the apples-to-apples comparison. This military bets versus, say, sports wagering. So military bets are 52 % success rate. Sports, 7%. Wildly disproportionate to what conventional probability should be telling us. Absolutely. In Ocean Away, another team of digital detectives say they too have identified crooked bettors wagering on war.

9:02This might be the most insane pattern we have found on Polymarket so far. Based in Paris, Nicholas Weiman's small data analytics firm Bubble Maps creates visualizations of bets on Polymarket to spot bubbles, or clusters, of suspect traders. One paradox of Polymarket, everything about the trades is totally transparent and public, except the traders themselves remain anonymous. This big cluster in the middle, no one talked about it. The firm's head of investigations goes by his online handle, Deabs. He asked us to obscure his identity over fears of retaliation for his detective work. They shared for the first time what they believe is a more egregious insider trading case than Dan and Ken Van Dyke's.

9:49We spotted nine polymarket accounts, all connected, who made collectively$2.4 million, betting almost exclusively on U.S. military operations. Van Dyke made$400 ,000. Here,$2.4 million. And now, here's the crazy part. 98 % win rate. Wait, wait, wait, wait. 98. 98%. This is like winning the lottery multiple times, you know? The linked accounts made dozens of winning bets on the specific dates of pivotal moments in the war with Iran, even when the odds were low. The first U.S. strikes, the removal of Iran's supreme leader, the announcement of a ceasefire. How do we know this isn't just someone who has really good instincts?

10:34Luck alone cannot explain those numbers. If you know this, why don't federal prosecutors? Well, hopefully with your interview, they're going to know this. We talked to one source in the Defense Department with relation to Sergeant Van Dyke, and he said, listen, there are dozens more of these. Van Dyke was just a small fish. For sure. There's so many people involved in the planning and the execution of a military operation. A former U.S. military officer, Deeb speaks from firsthand experience when he says military bets are ripe for corruption. You have, obviously, the government officials, but you also have the military planners, right?

11:12You have the military intelligence analysts and even spouses. They hear things, and that means that there, consequently, are a lot of potential insiders. And it's not just the voguish, high-tech, online prediction markets where trades based on war have raised intense suspicions. It's happening on the old-school and heavily regulated commodities markets, too. I'm highly suspicious at this point, and I'm not the only one. Any trader right now is highly suspicious. A former commodities trader, David Covell is now a New York lawyer representing victims of fraud on the same markets he once traded. In 2021, he secured the largest whistleblower award for commodities market manipulation in U.S.

11:55history. Well, this is a classic graph that any commodities trader will understand. Covell walked us through the morning of March 23rd. Fighting had been raging for three-plus weeks, and it was a slow trading day in oil futures. If you see the chart, you'll see that no one is trading during that time period. Why would you trade at that time? It doesn't make a lot of sense unless you have a real reason. Then, according to data the financial firm LSEG provided us, suddenly at 6.50 a.m., more than$800 million was staked on the chance of oil prices dropping. Fifteen minutes later, President Trump posted on True Social that the White House in Iran had, quote, very good and productive conversations about ending hostilities.

12:40The news sent the price of oil plummeting more than 10 percent. What kind of profit is that resulting in? We're talking tens of millions could be$80 million. You see this graph and you think insider trading. That's a natural conclusion to draw. I can't know it without knowing what happened, but it's a natural conclusion to draw. Covell is not alone in finding this highly dubious. 60 Minutes has learned federal investigators are probing these oil market trades as well. What are the odds the government knows the identity of whoever executed that? If they go to the exchanges, they can know them. This could have been someone inside the U.S.

13:16This could have been someone from a foreign country. This could have been an enemy. Identifying who it was would be the secret to figuring out whether it was insider trading or not. It's not just markets that risk manipulation by war bets. its truth as well. Emmanuel Fabian, a military correspondent for the Times of Israel, thought little of a piece he wrote in March about an Iranian missile strike in an empty forest near Jerusalem. But soon after he published the account, Fabian received a barrage of messages asking him to change his story. He ignored most, but they turned darker. One of them was, you're going to make us lose$900 ,000, and we'll invest even more than that to finish you, is what he wrote.

13:58He also wrote details about my siblings as well. He said, I know how often you visit your family. What's your fear factor at this point? I was quite worried. He investigated and found war bets on Pali market hinging on whether an Iranian missile would enter Israel, specifically on March 10th. And Fabian's small news story voided the side of the bets predicting no missile, angering the losers. It was at$14 million that were being waged there. $14 million? Yeah, but by the time it closed, it actually went up to$22 million, if I'm not mistaken. Also, the person who wrote them, they wrote that, you know, if you abide by my instructions and change it, then, you know, you can end with money in your pocket and this will all be over.

14:39Despite this pressure campaign against you that escalated to death threats, you did not go in and change your copy. Do you worry that other people might not have your principled stance? I do worry. We know when there's a lot of money involved, in this case,$22 million, I think that can cause people to, you know, to lie. Fabian reported the threats to the police and to Polymarket, which said that threatening a journalist was unacceptable and banned the accounts involved. Polymarket has said they work proactively on any suspicious activity constantly behind the scenes. Overseeing all this, playing sheriff in this new Wild West?

15:17In the U.S., it's that niche government agency, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the CFTC. set up in the 70s to regulate food prices. Historically led by a commission of five, today it's run by one person, Michael Selig, a 36-year-old whom President Trump nominated chairman last fall. We will hold whoever's engaging in fraudulent, manipulative, or insider trading activity accountable to the American people. But enforcement actions have dropped by more than two-thirds since 2024. Staffing has dropped sharply too. Sealy declined our interview request, though the CFTC told us it is hiring more staff and using AI to go after bad actors.

16:02And government officials are aware of the new potential for corruption. In March, the White House issued a memo to staffers noting it is a criminal offense for anyone to use non-public information on prediction markets. Where do you draw the line? I guess reasonable people can debate where the line is. Source after source told us they fear today's insider trading scandal is tomorrow's national security scandal. If market watchers can spot irregular trades, surely enemies can too, and they'll make their war plans accordingly. Just to put it plainly, this could be putting people's lives at risk.

16:38Other adversaries may be using this information in order to plan their own strategy. If you're taking a futures position, a year from now, Sergeant Van Dyke is the only person charged with insider trading? No. I think it's just going to multiply from here.

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18:18Tech companies promise these AI inventions, some of which are already operating in several American cities, are safer and smarter than human drivers. But as we found out, London's cabbies aren't about to hand over their keys. After all, just to get a license, they've already proven their own kind of intelligence. studying, often for years, to pass a 161-year-old test called the knowledge. There's nothing artificial about it. They just have to memorize 25 ,000 streets and thousands of landmarks and businesses and know the shortest routes between them all.

18:56Look, we're the oldest form of transport in the world. In fact, we come before buses and trains and stuff. Yeah, we are the icons of London. If we do a left here, you'll have the Goldsmiths Hall. Tom Scullion has been driving one of London's famous black cabs for the past 34 years. What's the weirdest request you've gotten from a passenger? What, this week? You wouldn't believe. There's a guy, it's a regular ride, and he's got an Irish wolf hand. Dog. Gives you a bit of paper where the dog lives. Dog jumps in the back. One of the best customers I've got. Never says a word, never complains about it, right?

19:35But we get people, hailing us down in the morning, to take my kid to school. Never seen me before in life, probably never seen me again. That's the trust we get. The trust and confidence in cabbies here dates back to 1865, when the knowledge exam was first introduced to London's horse-drawn cabmen. Do you have riders testing your knowledge? Every ride. Which way are you going, mate? And Google says this and Google says that. You're never going to beat the knowledge. Your knowledge is better than what a Google map will tell you to go. Oh, don't make me laugh. Seriously, you know. It's like comparing a hot dog vendor to Gordon Ramsay.

20:17At the Transport for London office, nervous, aspiring cabbies dress up in their Sunday best to take a series of oral exams known as appearances. Whenever you're ready, sir, we'll go from Soho House, 40 Greek Street to the Chancery Rosewood, please. Candidates are quizzed on how to get between two random points. I live on left Greek Street, right Shaftesbury Avenue, left Great Wimmel Street, forward Haymarket. As examiners measure the distance, ensuring they're calling the shortest route. Unfortunately, sir, I can't score you today. He failed this round, but for those who do pass the knowledge, this memorization has proven to be so challenging it can change the structure of their brains.

20:59A study from University College London found cab drivers' posterior hippocampi, the part of the brain linked to memory, got bigger throughout their careers. Everyone in their profession has had to train themselves with knowledge to be the best what they are, and that's what we're doing. Stephen Fairbrass has been trying to pass the knowledge for eight years. Anshu Morjani for five. They showed us the official study guide known as the Blue Book. These are like the points, points of interest that any paying customer would want you to take them to. I mean, there's thousands of them. Yeah, 6 ,000 of them.

21:37I just have to look at this. The Last Judgment, PH, the Law Society Hall, the Londoner Hotel, the Marquis, the Mon Library, the National Gallery. I mean, this is crazy that you have to know all this. You have to learn individual restaurants? Individual restaurants. Public houses. What if a restaurant goes out of business? Then he changes names and then you learn a new name. Then it comes on the list. It comes on the list. Yeah, it goes on the list. Now their knowledge is being tested like never before. Autonomous vehicles haven't been approved to pick up passengers in London yet, but several companies are already trying out their cars here.

22:11Wave, a British startup backed by NVIDIA and Microsoft, hopes to be operational later this year, as does Waymo, which is owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet. Takidra Mawakana is Waymo's co-CEO. She says putting more of its robo-taxis on the roads can save lives by reducing the million traffic deaths worldwide each year. You believe driverless cars are safer than a human-driven vehicle? In the case of Waymo, we actually have the data. that shows us that we're five times safer than a human driver. Waymo has already made significant inroads in the U.S. It first began offering rides to customers in a Phoenix suburb in 2020.

22:53Now, millions of riders across 11 major U.S. cities are being driven by Waymos each month. Humans want to get in the car, send that last email they didn't get to send, and check on the kid that's screaming. But we're trying to drive and do that. So this really gives you the chance to take care of all of those things and then let the Waymo driver safely get you from point A to point B. You call it a Waymo driver, but there's no driver. We really think it's important to think of it as there is a driver, right? This driver is the most experienced driver in the world. We travel over 2 million miles a week.

23:29So humans drive about 700 ,000 miles in a lifetime. So this is almost three lifetimes per week that our fleet is driving. Because it's been trained on every other ride that Waymo's given? The whole fleet, yes. Waymo's AI has also driven billions of miles in simulation to train for the countless rare scenarios it might face on roads, like snow on the Golden Gate Bridge or even an elephant stopping traffic. Start ride whenever you're ready. In San Francisco, we took a trip in one of its robo-taxis with product manager Chris Ludwig. Happy Friday. It's a little freaky not to have a driver. You hear this all the time, but I'm watching the wheel very, very carefully.

24:16Yep. But after a few minutes, the ride felt strangely normal. Feels like a very careful driver. Our goal is kind of blissfully boring. The car is outfitted with 29 cameras, six radars, five microphones, and five LIDAR sensors, which continuously pulse to measure distances, objects, and people as far as three football fields away. Inside, a screen shows riders what the car is seeing. It sees an intersection, I don't know, 300 feet away, but because there's other cars, I can't see it, but it sees around these other cars. That's right, and that's partly the design of the placement of the sensors.

24:54It makes it superhuman compared to what a human would be able to do. Waymo says the data gathered from these sensors enables the AI to respond faster than a human. We saw that when a woman talking on her phone crossed right in front of us. It's kind of crazy to see a person change their mind and how quickly the Waymo responded to, like, a slight motion of them moving forward. Exactly. The system has learned to react to those subtle cues because that's what's necessary. Waymo's AI may have a lot of training, but it still makes some rookie mistakes. Oh my God. What the f*** is that Waymo doing? In Los Angeles, a Waymo drove through an active police scene.

25:34Waymo, come on! There's also been incidents of the robo-taxis getting in the way of emergency responders and illegally passing stopped school buses, leading to a software recall and a federal investigation. Back in London, Waymo's robo-taxis have been driving the streets to build a detailed 3D map to train its AI, a company standard before operating in a new area. But it does have competition. We want to make sure our AI can understand every concept it might encounter. Alex Kendall is WAVE's CEO. Unlike Waymos, his artificial intelligence doesn't map out a city before driving in it. How is it possible you don't need to map a city entirely before getting your vehicles to drive autonomously in it?

26:20Well, think about how you and I learned how to drive. I learned how to go through a few traffic lights, and that taught me how the concept of traffic lights works. In a similar way, that's how our AI learns. We train it on millions of hours of experience driving all around the world. So this means when it goes somewhere it's never seen before or it's never been mapped, it can understand what's in front of it and make decisions in real time. Wave's robo-taxis are still in testing and not yet available to the public. The products that we're building will use in-built sensors. But Kendall believes his AI will be able to more easily adapt to new environments.