Jamie McDonald’s prediction market ties could enhance prosecutions in Manhattan

The Southern District of New York has a new top prosecutor, and he happens to know more about prediction markets than practically anyone else in federal law enforcement. Jamie McDonald was sworn in as US Attorney on July 29, replacing Jay Clayton, who left to become Director of National Intelligence. McDonald’s resume reads like it was custom-built for this moment. He previously served as enforcement director at the CFTC, where he oversaw event contracts. He was also a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, where his clients included Polymarket. Now he’s running the office that just filed the first-ever federal insider trading cases involving prediction markets. Two cases, two very different schemes The first, U.S. v. Van Dyke, was unsealed in April 2026. The defendant allegedly turned roughly $33,000 in investments into more than $400,000 in profits by trading on contracts related to the capture of Venezuelan leader Maduro. The edge? Classified military information. The second case, U.S. v. Spagnuolo, hit the docket in May 2026. A Google engineer allegedly used internal company data to earn approximately $1.2 million through prediction market trading. Combined, the two cases represen...