Kalshi: White House Teleprompter Operator Won $100K on Trump Contracts

^{Inside info reportedly led to a White House teleprompter operator winning approximately $100k, according to Kalshi. (Photo: Xinhua / Alamy)}

Prediction market Kalshi alleged Thursday that a White House teleprompter operator had used his inside knowledge to win around $100,000 by buying contracts based on what President Donald Trump would say during his speeches.

Gabriel Perez, who works as a technical assistant to President Trump, made trades on words that would appear in the president’s speeches, according to Kalshi.

White House Places Employee on Unpaid Leave

The platform said that it had flagged Perez’s trades in March, at which point it froze his account, referring the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal agency responsible for regulating prediction markets. 

According to sources cited by ABC News, CFTC investigators found that Perez had bet on more than a dozen of the president’s speeches, including February’s State of the Union address, a televised primetime address in December, and a January speech at the World Economic Forum.

The White House addressed the issue on July 16, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters that Perez had been placed on unpaid administrative leave.

“The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” Leavitt said, without naming the employee in question. “I think this played out exactly how it should. Kalshi notified the CFTC of suspicious activity. They investigated that, identified the individual, and now he will no longer be working at the White House.”

Perez has operated the teleprompter for President Trump since 2016. He is currently negotiating with federal regulators to settle the alleged insider trading, according to multiple media reports.

Teleprompter Knew What Trump Would Say – And When He Changed Course

The teleprompter operator has been put under scrutiny before, given his position as the last person to see Trump’s intended wording before each speech. That made him a subject of questioning when federal and congressional investigators looked into last-minute edits made before President Trump’s remarks on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol Building. 

Perez was also in a position to see when Trump went off-book – something the president has been known to do regularly. ABC News cited sources who said that investigators found instances in which Perez would trade out of positions mid-speech when Trump skipped over portions that included words he had bet the president would say.

Insider trading has come under increased scrutiny at prediction markets in recent months. In April, the Department of Justice charged a U.S. Army solider with unlawful use of confidential information for personal gain after he allegedly profited more than $400,000 by trading on Polymarket contracts about the raid that resulted in the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. 

In June, the CFTC was reported to be investigating Polymarket. While details of that investigation have not been made public, media reports suggested the probe had a wide scope. Meanwhile, Congress has also raised questions about the spread of prediction markets, particularly when it comes to whether they should be allowed to offer sporting event contracts on their platforms regardless of state laws.