Ex-White House teleprompter operator ordered to pay $172,000 for insider bets on Kalshi
He was placed on unpaid leave from his job at the White House after it was determined he used his position to make bets on what President Trump would say in speeches.
A former White House teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, has been ordered to pay a $172,000 fine and surrender over $100,000 in profits after being accused of using insider knowledge to make bets on the prediction market Kalshi. This settlement, reached with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), also placed Perez on a three-year trading ban.
Perez had allegedly misused his access to presidential speeches to place bets on specific words and phrases that would appear in President Trump's speeches between December 2025 and February 2026. According to the CFTC, Perez made $107,500 in profits through these insider bets. In his role, Perez was privy to presidential speeches prior to their delivery, which he exploited for personal gain, violating his duty of trust and confidence.
The CFTC reduced the civil penalty due to Perez's cooperation during the investigation. In March, the White House Management Office warned against placing bets on prediction markets using nonpublic information. Kalshi, the prediction market platform, detected Perez's suspicious trading activity through its surveillance systems and froze his account, retaining more than $90,000 in profits.
After the investigation, the CFTC referred the case to Perez, who had worked for the Trump administration as a technical adviser and teleprompter operator during his first and second terms. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt expressed regret over the incident.
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