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Of all the ways to get caught insider trading, betting on words you’re literally putting in front of the president’s face has to be one of the more audacious ones.
Gabriel Perez, a teleprompter operator at the White House, is under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly using his advance knowledge of Trump’s speeches to place profitable wagers on Kalshi, the regulated prediction market platform. Perez reportedly pocketed more than $90,000 by betting on a dozen speeches over a three-month window, a run that Kalshi’s own surveillance team eventually flagged as suspicious.
How it worked
Kalshi operates a product category called “Mentions,” which lets traders bet on whether specific words or topics will appear during public addresses.
The trades were allegedly tied to high-profile events including the State of the Union address in February 2026, a December primetime address, and remarks made at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. Some reports suggest his total profits may have exceeded $100,000.
Perez has served as Trump’s teleprompter operator since 2016, meaning he’s had a decade of proximity to presidential rhetoric. But it appears the emergence of prediction markets with speech-specific contracts created a monetization opportunity that didn’t exist during his earlier tenure.
Kalshi’s role in catching the trades
Kalshi’s internal enforcement team is the one that caught the pattern. The platform identified suspicious trading activity linked to Perez’s account, froze his profits, and referred the case to the CFTC.
Kalshi also reportedly implemented additional security measures in the wake of the referral, though the specifics of those changes haven’t been detailed.
Following the exposure, Perez was placed on unpaid administrative leave by the White House. He is reportedly engaged in settlement discussions with regulators, suggesting the case may resolve without a full enforcement action going to trial.
This is the first known insider-trading probe involving a White House employee on a prediction market.
What this means for prediction markets and investors
Kalshi operates under CFTC oversight as a designated contract market, which means it’s held to the same regulatory standards as traditional derivatives exchanges. Polymarket, by contrast, operates offshore and caters primarily to crypto-native users.
The Perez case tests whether the existing regulatory framework is robust enough to handle the unique insider-information risks that prediction markets create. Traditional insider trading law was built around corporate earnings and material nonpublic information about securities. A teleprompter operator betting on speech content doesn’t fit neatly into those boxes, which is partly why the CFTC, not the SEC, is running the investigation.
The “Mentions” product category, by its very design, creates a class of insiders: speechwriters, communications staff, advance teams, and yes, teleprompter operators.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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