Trump teleprompter aide faces CFTC probe over $100K Kalshi bets
A White House teleprompter operator is in settlement talks with regulators over alleged $100,000 insider trading on Kalshi, highlighting systemic vulnerabilities in prediction markets.
Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant who has operated President Donald Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, is under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Perez allegedly used his advance access to upcoming speech scripts to place highly profitable bets on Kalshi's "Mentions" markets, which let users wager on specific words or topics in public addresses.
The scheme reportedly generated more than $100,000 in profits across more than a dozen speeches over roughly three months. Targets included high-profile events like the State of the Union and remarks at the World Economic Forum. Traders familiar with the matter noted Perez occasionally liquidated his holdings mid-address if the president ad-libbed and avoided the specific phrases tied to his wagers.
Kalshi’s internal surveillance systems flagged the suspicious trading patterns, prompting the platform to refer the matter to the CFTC. Following the report, the White House placed Perez on unpaid administrative leave. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Trump called the alleged conduct a "disgrace."
For market professionals, the Perez case is the most glaring example yet of a structural flaw in prediction markets: their extreme susceptibility to insider trading. As trading volumes on these platforms have surged, the barrier to monetizing nonpublic information has proven remarkably low.
Similar suspicious patterns have emerged elsewhere. In March, six Polymarket traders earned roughly $1 million by correctly wagering on a U.S. strike against Iran just hours before explosions were reported in Tehran. Separately, wallets made over $1.2 million betting on an onchain investigation into DeFi platform Axiom right before blockchain investigator ZachXBT published the findings. Another trader pocketed about $400,000 by accurately predicting the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro before the news broke publicly.
Legislative action is already following these market anomalies. Last month, House digital assets subcommittee chair Bryan Steil, a Republican, sponsored a bill barring lawmakers and their relatives from using prediction markets to trade on political or policy outcomes. The CFTC's current pursuit of a settlement with a direct White House aide signals that enforcement agencies are prepared to police the broader ecosystem just as aggressively.
