A White House teleprompter operator who bet on what President Trump would say during speeches has been ordered to pay $172,000 and banned from prediction markets for three years.
A White House teleprompter operator who used his front-row access to President Trump's speeches to profit on prediction markets has been ordered to pay $172,000 and banned from trading for three years. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the enforcement action Friday night, closing a case that exposed just how far a staffer with inside knowledge was willing to go.
Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to the president who had run Trump's teleprompter since 2016, was ordered to surrender $107,539 in trading profits and pay a $65,000 civil penalty. The CFTC also slapped him with a three-year ban on prediction market trading and ordered him to stop and desist from further violations of federal commodities law.
Between December 2025 and February 2026, Perez traded on Kalshi, the popular prediction market platform, using what the CFTC called "presidential mention market contracts" -- event contracts that pay out based on whether the president uses specific words or phrases during his public remarks.
Because Perez had advance access to the speeches before they were delivered, he knew what the president was going to say before the rest of the world did. The CFTC said he misappropriated that material, nonpublic information in breach of his duty of trust and confidence, trading on it for personal gain. Regulators called it insider trading, plain and simple.
It was a remarkably simple scheme that yielded more than $107,500 in profits before anyone caught on. The only problem: he got caught, and the consequences were swift.
The scheme unraveled thanks to Kalshi's own monitoring systems. The company's surveillance flagged a series of unusual trades on markets tied to words and phrases expected to appear in Trump's remarks. The trades stood out because they did not follow typical trading patterns, and market makers on the platform raised complaints through the whistleblower channels.
After reviewing account information, Kalshi identified the trader as a federal employee working as a White House teleprompter operator. The company froze the account before Perez could withdraw most of his profits and referred the matter to federal regulators.
Kalshi's lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, made clear the company takes a hard line on abuse. "A Kalshi surveillance investigation caught a White House staffer engaging in prohibited trading activity," he said. "It doesn't matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences."
Perez's $65,000 civil penalty reflected a substantial discount, which the CFTC said it granted because of his exemplary cooperation with the investigation.
The case first surfaced publicly in July, and the administration responded with zero tolerance. Perez was placed on paid administrative leave immediately, and then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president himself had been briefed on the matter.
"Obviously, I'm aware of the report. The president is, too. I spoke with him about it," Leavitt said at the time. "He believes it's deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace." She added that "this individual will no longer be here."
For a White House that has made accountability a theme, the handling of the case was a point of pride: a staffer caught abusing his access was removed, investigated, and hit with real financial consequences within months. The White House did not respond to a request for comment Friday night.
The enforcement action sends a clear signal as prediction markets continue to grow in popularity. Platforms like Kalshi have become a major arena for political betting, and this case establishes that anyone with inside access to government information -- even a teleprompter operator -- is not above the rules.
For Perez, the cost of the scheme adds up fast: $107,539 in surrendered profits, a $65,000 penalty, a three-year trading ban, and a federal insider trading finding attached to his name. The White House has moved on without him, and Kalshi has publicly vowed that rule-breakers will face consequences regardless of who they are.
The case is a reminder that the integrity of the system held -- the administration acted decisively, the platform caught the abuse, and the regulators finished the job. For anyone thinking about trading on inside knowledge of the president's next speech, the message is simple: don't.
A White House teleprompter operator who bet on what President Trump would say during speeches has been ordered to pay $172,000 and banned from prediction markets for three years.
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