The US Department of Defense has barred military personnel and civilian staff from using nonpublic information to bet on US military operations, naming prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi in a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The memo, sent on 20 October to senior Pentagon leadership and combatant commanders and titled “Do Not Compromise Military Operations for Personal Financial Gain”, covers both classified and unclassified information, according to CBS News, which obtained a copy. It does not ban personnel from using prediction markets outright, but targets trades based on information they hold through their work.

Operational security

Hegseth framed the rule as a security measure rather than an ethics one. “Our enemies watch movements in these markets,” he wrote, warning that foreign intelligence services could analyse betting activity to anticipate the movements, targets and timing of US operations. Violations could lead to administrative discipline or prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice or federal criminal law.

The Maduro case

The directive follows the arrest in April of US Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a Special Forces soldier involved in the operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Federal investigators allege he placed more than $33,000 in bets on Polymarket on Maduro’s removal before the raid was made public, yielding more than $409,000 in winnings, CBS reported. Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty in federal court in New York.

Polymarket has described the arrest as “proof the system works”.

Insider risk moves up the agenda

The memo adds the Pentagon to a growing list of institutions grappling with insider trading on event contracts, a problem that sports betting regulators have long policed through integrity monitoring but that prediction markets handle under commodities law. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has already warned that some contract types carry heightened manipulation risk, and markets on government and military decisions are among the hardest to monitor because the people with advance knowledge are few and hard to identify from the outside.

The issue cuts across the industry’s wider fight over whether event contracts are financial products or gambling. State regulators and sportsbook operators argue that prediction markets lack the know-your-customer checks, integrity partnerships and suspicious-betting reporting that licensed betting operators must maintain. Prediction market operators counter that federal oversight and public trade data provide their own safeguards, and that the Van Dyke case was detected through exactly that data.

Other governments are acting too. Taiwan this month blocked Kalshi and Coinbase over local election betting, citing the risk to the integrity of the vote.

The Pentagon rule puts the burden on individual service members rather than on the platforms. Whether Polymarket, Kalshi and their rivals restrict markets on military action, or tighten identity checks to flag users with defence connections, will be the next test of how far the sector is willing to police itself.

ComeOn Group and SuomiVeto have been granted licences to offer online casino and sports betting in Finland, bringing to four the number of operators that have publicly confirmed approval ahead of the market’s opening on 1 July 2027.

The two join Wildz Group and Hippos ATG on the list of companies cleared by the Finnish National Police Board under the new Gambling Act, which ends Veikkaus’s monopoly on online casino and sports betting. The Police Board has been processing applications since the window opened on 2 March 2026, and had received 41 by late May.

ComeOn secures full set

European Entertainment Group (EEG), ComeOn’s parent, said in a statement on 22 October that its subsidiary had received all the licences it applied for. ComeOn filed on 2 March, the first day applications were accepted. EEG also owns supplier Yggdrasil, virtual sports provider Highlight Games and affiliate Game Lounge.

“Finland is a market where we look forward to serving Finnish customers in a fully regulated environment from July 2027,” said EEG chief executive Itai Frieberger. Chief financial officer Raffaele Amodio added: “Finland is a core part of our growth strategy.” The company said it would give further detail on its Finnish preparations in its regular financial reporting.

SuomiVeto’s BetCity playbook

SuomiVeto is a Helsinki-based start-up led by the founders of Dutch operator BetCity, which was sold to Entain. Chief executive and co-founder Melvin Bostelaar said the licence was “the beginning of an exciting new chapter”, while co-founder Joey Singels said the company was not set up “just to enter the market, but to become one of its leading gaming brands”.

The founders are repeating the partner line-up they used at BetCity. SuomiVeto signed a turnkey sportsbook deal with Kambi in February and is also working with Bragg Gaming. A Finnish-first local brand with a proven exit model behind it is a different proposition from the established Nordic and Maltese groups expected to dominate the early licence list.

A crowded start

Wildz Group was the first to announce approval earlier this month, claiming the first Finnish online gambling licence. Hippos ATG, the horseracing betting operator, has also confirmed approval, according to Gaming Intelligence’s tally.

More announcements are expected as the Police Board works through the remaining applications. Licensed operations cannot begin until 1 July 2027, when supervision passes to the new Finnish Permit and Supervision Agency. In the meantime the authorities are tightening the screws on unlicensed operators, with Finnish police already stepping up fines for illegal gambling marketing.

For licensees, the eight months before launch are about building local brands and payment set-ups in a market that has never had legal private competition. How many of the 41 applicants get through, and how quickly, will determine how crowded the Finnish market is from day one.

Evoke, the owner of William Hill, 888 and Mr Green, reported a 7% fall in third-quarter revenue to £406m, blaming the closure of around 270 UK betting shops over the past year and calling on the government to hold off on further tax rises in this week’s Budget.

Excluding the closed shops and at constant exchange rates, revenue for the three months to 30 September fell 2%, the company said in its trading update on 23 October. Customer-friendly sports results at the start of the football season took 1 to 2 percentage points off growth, leaving underlying revenue broadly stable on a normalised basis.

Tax and the shop estate

Chief executive Per Widerström linked the closures directly to the tax changes announced last year. “The closure of 270 shops over the past year shows the real impact on jobs and livelihoods from higher industry taxation,” he said, adding that “on an underlying basis the business continues to show resilience”.

Remote Gaming Duty rose from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026, and a new 25% rate for remote betting takes effect on 1 April 2027, with remote bets on UK horseracing kept at 15%. Evoke has estimated the changes will add £125m to £135m a year to its duty bill once fully in force. It expects to offset about half of that through supplier savings, lower marketing spend, shop closures and operating cost cuts.

Evoke had said in March that it would permanently close about 200 UK shops, roughly 15% of its retail estate, starting in May. The number has since risen. At the half-year stage in August, group revenue was flat at £887.5m and up 2% like-for-like.

Budget pressure

The update came days before the Chancellor’s Autumn Budget on 28 October, and Widerström used it to lobby against another round of increases. “We urge the UK government to carefully consider any further increases,” he said.

The industry fears the Budget will target land-based gaming machines next. A group of 90 Labour MPs has pressed the Chancellor to double Machine Games Duty on Category B machines, a move Betfred’s founder has warned would end the high street betting shop. The machines are a core revenue line for the retail estates of Evoke, Entain and Betfred.

Evoke is not the only operator cutting back. Flutter said last week that it would cut up to 1,400 UK and Ireland jobs as it absorbs the higher duty rate.

Bally’s Intralot deal on track

Evoke said its takeover by Bally’s Intralot remains on course to complete at the end of the fourth quarter of 2026 or the start of the first quarter of 2027. Shareholders of both companies have approved the deal, which offers 0.537 new Bally’s Intralot shares for each Evoke share and valued Evoke at about £243.1m when it was agreed. Bally’s Intralot has lined up around £889m of financing to fund the deal and refinance Evoke’s debt, which stood at about £1.86bn at the end of 2025.

The update gave no profit or cash figures. With the deal close to completion, how the Budget treats betting shops and machines will shape the retail estate Bally’s Intralot inherits.