An Israeli Air Force officer was indicted on Monday for allegedly using information related to military operations to place bets on the Polymarket platform.
The prosecution requested his continued detention until the end of the investigation. The court rejected the officer’s request to be placed under house arrest rather than in prison.
According to the prosecution, the officer showed that he was ready to “sell information for financial gain”, at the risk of endangering Israeli Air Force pilots and military operations.
The judge in charge of the case considered that it was not just a story of betting, but a series of serious acts motivated by the search for adrenaline and financial gain, disregarding the consequences and the most basic moral standards.
The court emphasized that the decision to keep the officer in detention was not only based on the seriousness of the offense, but above all on the alleged sale of classified information and on the danger that this could represent for Israel if such events occurred again.
In his defense, the officer claimed not to have understood the seriousness of his actions, maintaining that this type of betting would be widespread within the Israeli Air Force.
“The entire Israeli air force is involved in the betting,” he said.
The court found that this statement was not directly relevant to his case, but should be the subject of a separate investigation within the army.
Since the start of the year, several cases have involved IDF soldiers or officials with access to sensitive information and suspected of having used it to obtain financial gains.
In February, an Israeli civilian and an IDF reservist were already indicted for using classified military information to place bets on Polymarket.
