The special forces soldier bet on his team's success. He risked his life. His bet would not alter his behavior in anyway incongruous with mission objectives. Is that really that bad if the direction of the bet isn't unethical?

He could have died and this would be a non-story, just someone throwing 32k away before they were killed in action.

People are focusing on the use of confidential information and calling this insider trading, which is fair, he had knowledge that the trading public did not. But to lump him in with refs who call games wrong on purpose is ridiculous. In one example you are betting on something you want to happen anyway, it is not deception. In the other, you are profiting from deliberate fraud. I think there needs to be some sort of category difference between these two.

While it seems like an interesting point - a kind of 'doubling down' - its not clear cut at all.

Firstly, the dichotomy you presented for the individual is: succeed, live, and make loads of money vs fail, die, and lose a fair chunk. The argument you make with this dichotomy is that the gambling doesn't affect anything. However the reality is that there are many ways for the mission to end - fail, live, lose a fair chunk being notable because when the mission is going sideways the individual becomes incentivised to put themselves and others at greater risk to make a successful outcome more likely. Succeed, live, lose your squad mates, make loads of money becomes more likely as well as fail, live, lose your squad mates.

Secondly, insider trading is and always will be a signal for others. If you're only allowed to bet in one direction it becomes a form of information leak - monitor who is liquidating their assets to gamble on outcomes. For any project it becomes a signal to others - if your boss isn't remortgaging to gamble more then you know its time to jump ship. This will in turn have significant effects on outcomes.

No, there doesn't need to be.

I think the bigger issue is that he effectively leaked the raid. Now intelligence agencies will be constantly watching the geopolitical questions on prediction markets for big bets. Of course the Trump administration seems to be leaking through prediction markets as well and I doubt they’ll face any consequences.