By: Nicky, Foresight News
On July 16, according to reports from CNBC and ABC, a long-serving teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump has been suspended by the White House and is under investigation by federal regulators for allegedly using insider information to place bets on a prediction market platform.
March 27, 2026, Miami Beach, Florida. Perez cleaning the teleprompter before Trump's speech at the Future Investment Initiative Institute summit.
The person involved, Gabriel Perez, has been operating teleprompters for Trump since 2016. He was typically the last among aides to handle and adjust the president's speeches, even receiving last-minute changes from Trump himself. Citing sources familiar with the matter, ABC and CNBC reported that investigators from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) discovered Perez had traded on over a dozen of Trump's public speeches in about three months, covering events such as the State of the Union address, speeches at the World Economic Forum in Davos, prime-time addresses, and Medal of Honor ceremonies.
He used his advance knowledge of speech content to bet on whether specific words, phrases, or topics would be mentioned in the "Mentions" markets on the Kalshi platform. He even withdrew bets mid-speech on occasion when Trump skipped certain sections.
Perez's trading was detected by Kalshi's monitoring system in March of this year, as the patterns did not match typical buy/sell behavior and were additionally flagged by a market maker through a tip line. The platform subsequently froze the account, withheld nearly all profits, and referred the case to the CFTC. Robert DeNault, Kalshi's Head of Enforcement, stated via CNBC that the monitoring team promptly flagged these trades, the platform is assisting regulators, and has submitted gathered evidence.
CNBC reported that Perez accumulated profits exceeding $90,000, but most of the gains have been frozen by Kalshi. Perez is currently in settlement negotiations with the CFTC and could face consequences including disgorgement of all profits and a ban from engaging in similar trading. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office has been informed but decided not to open a criminal investigation.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed at a press briefing that Perez has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, is no longer responsible for teleprompter operations, and will not continue working at the White House. According to CNBC, Leavitt revealed that Trump is aware and considers the matter "very unfortunate, truly a disgrace," and personally made the relevant decisions. Leavitt emphasized the White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines, and an internal memo was specifically issued in March warning staff not to trade on prediction markets using non-public information.
The Perez case is not an isolated incident. As early as May 2025, California gubernatorial candidate Kyle Langford traded about $200 in markets related to his own candidacy, made minimal profits, but was ultimately fined $2,246 and banned from the platform for five years. From August to September 2025, a video editor named Artem Kaptur, who used his job to learn show schedules in advance, was flagged for an abnormally high win rate, profiting about $5,400. He faced disgorgement of profits plus a $15,000 penalty and a two-year ban.
In February 2026, former Congressman George Santos, while publicly pledging to attend Trump's State of the Union address, bet that he would not attend and profited tens of thousands of dollars. His account was frozen and referred to regulators and law enforcement. In April of the same year, three congressional candidates were investigated for making small bets in markets related to their own elections, receiving fines ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars and five-year bans. Even small profits or unwithdrawn gains can lead to platform penalties and regulatory action for trading on insider information.
Image Source: Internet
Another major prediction market platform, Polymarket, has also experienced similar severe violations. According to a previous CNBC report, U.S. Army Special Forces Staff Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, during his participation in a military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from December 2025 to January 2026, used classified information to purchase large volumes of contracts in related Polymarket markets, profiting over $400,000. He was arrested in April of this year and faces criminal and civil insider trading charges. In May of the same year, Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo was charged for allegedly using internal company "annual search trends" data to trade on Polymarket from October to December 2025, profiting approximately $1.2 million.
The reason insider trading repeatedly occurs in prediction markets is that informational advantages can be quickly converted into excess returns, and some topic markets have already achieved significant trading volumes that cannot be ignored. For example, on Kalshi, the topic "Which companies will Trump mention in July?" has seen trading volume exceeding $150,000. High-liquidity markets provide ample profit space for insiders, while ordinary users are at a disadvantage due to information asymmetry, damaging market price fairness and platform credibility.
In response to these issues, platforms and regulators are attempting multiple measures to curb them. Kalshi recently updated its policies, requiring traders in certain markets to disclose professional information, and relies on KYC procedures, 24/7 abnormal trading detection, and tip lines to strengthen preventive measures. The platform conducted over 150 investigations in the first quarter of this year, froze more than 100 potentially suspicious trades, and referred over 20 cases to law enforcement agencies.
On the regulatory front, the CFTC has repeatedly cited regulations prohibiting the misuse of non-public information and market manipulation in recent enforcement actions and is collaborating with the Department of Justice to pursue criminal accountability. This means trading using government insider information or corporate data could lead to felony charges such as fraud and money laundering, along with years of imprisonment. The White House has also explicitly prohibited government employees from participating in such betting through internal memos.
