A White House teleprompter operator who has worked for President Trump since 2016 is under federal investigation for allegedly using inside knowledge of the president’s speeches to make nearly $100,000 on Kalshi, a prediction markets platform regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The case marks the first known instance of insider trading on a prediction platform traced to someone inside the White House. ABC News first reported the investigation. CBS News confirmed the story.
Gabriel Perez is accused of placing bets on Kalshi’s “mention markets,” contracts where users predict whether a speaker will use specific terms, such as countries, economic words, or campaign slogans, during public addresses. His targets included more than a dozen Trump speeches over a three-month period. Among them were the February State of the Union address, a December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and remarks at a March Medal of Honor ceremony, according to ABC News.
Kalshi flagged the activity in March. The betting did not follow typical patterns. Some trades were separately flagged by market makers in whistleblower channels, according to the company. Analysts at the platform examined the accounts behind the unusual trades and discovered the user was a federal employee who operated White House teleprompters, using data collected during customer onboarding and routine monitoring procedures. Kalshi froze more than $90,000 in profits before any money could be withdrawn. The platform banned Perez from betting.
Robert DeNault, Kalshi’s head of enforcement, said the firm’s surveillance team promptly flagged and referred the trades to the CFTC after an internal investigation. “We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral,” DeNault said in a statement. The CFTC declined to comment. Kalshi told the BBC that the words of political leaders like presidents and Federal Reserve chairs cause billions of dollars of movement in currency markets, oil futures, and the stock market.
White House response
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Trump was aware of the situation and had placed Perez on unpaid administrative leave. She called the actions “a disgrace.” Perez would no longer work at the White House. “The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” Leavitt told reporters at a news conference, adding that the decision was made by the president.
Records show Perez held the title of deputy assistant to the president and was paid $175,000 a year, according to NPR. His LinkedIn page identifies him as an employee of VIP Prompting, a company that has reportedly operated White House teleprompters since the 1960s, according to CNBC. Trump occasionally referenced Perez during public appearances, including a 2024 campaign stop in Reno, Nevada. “I have a guy, Gabe, he’s excellent,” Trump said at that event. “A good one is really like gold.”
A broader crackdown on prediction market abuse
Prediction markets have exploded in growth in recent months, leading to several high-profile insider trading cases. The Perez case is not isolated. In April, a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant was arrested on federal criminal charges for allegedly making hugely profitable trades on Polymarket related to the American military mission to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, according to CNBC. The sergeant, identified by CNBC as Gannon Ken Van Dyke, allegedly was involved in the planning and execution of that raid. The CFTC has also filed a civil complaint against him. In May, federal prosecutors charged a Google employee with fraud in connection with Polymarket contracts based on internal company data, according to CNBC. NPR reported that the engineer made $1.2 million on Polymarket by correctly guessing on Google search trends. CNBC identified the employee as Michele Spagnuolo and said the contracts were tied to Google’s “Year in Search” lists.
Investigators have also examined former Republican congressman George Santos, according to NPR. NPR reported that Santos pumped up a Kalshi market by claiming he would attend Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address, then cashed out on a “no” trade when he skipped it. In March, White House staff received a memo warning against using nonpublic government information to place bets on Kalshi and its largest competitor, Polymarket. The memo, reviewed by NPR, stated that it is a criminal offense for anyone inside the White House to buy or sell on the sites. NPR reported that aides were told in the memo that misusing government information “is a very serious offence and will not be tolerated.”
Using nonpublic information on Kalshi is prohibited by the platform’s rules. Such behavior could also be criminally prosecuted as wire fraud, commodities fraud, and money laundering, according to NPR. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan declined to open a criminal case against Perez, according to ABC News. Sources said Perez has been “fully cooperative” with the CFTC. The two sides have discussed a settlement that could include Perez returning his earnings and agreeing not to make similar trades in the future, according to ABC News. Kalshi implemented new rules in June requiring users to disclose employment information before betting on markets with heightened insider or manipulation risk, according to CNBC.
The president’s unpredictable and digressive speaking style creates volatile trading on mention markets, where odds fluctuate as traders try to forecast what subject Trump may veer to next. Some traders who treat mention markets as a full-time job have installed television antennas to gain a fraction-of-a-second advantage during live events, according to NPR. Ahead of Trump’s Thursday night address, Kalshi traders had already wagered more than $800,000 on whether the president would say words like “Hormuz,” “rigged election,” or “fake news,” NPR reported.