Ex-White House teleprompter operator ordered to pay $172,000 for Trump speech bets
The staffer was found to have used his prior knowledge of the president's speeches to place lucrative bets.
A former White House teleprompter operator has been directed to pay over $172,000 (£127,000) after being found to have leveraged confidential information to wager on the content of US President Donald Trump's speeches.
Gabriel Perez was discovered to have engaged in betting activities on the prediction markets platform Kalshi, where individuals can place bets on real-world occurrences. These trades, made between December 2025 and February 2026, involved predicting what the president would articulate in his addresses.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the platform's regulatory body, mandated that Perez forfeit profits totaling $107,539.02 (£79,452) and incur a civil penalty of $65,000 (£48,000).
The White House has not yet issued a statement regarding the matter. In July, then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt had indicated that Perez was on unpaid leave and would not be returning to his position.
In its announcement of the settlement on Friday, the CFTC stated that Perez had "misappropriated" his advance knowledge of Trump's speeches to place bets, thereby "breaching his duty of trust and confidence." The commission also noted that his civil penalty was reduced due to his "exemplary co-operation" with the ongoing investigation.
Perez has also received a three-year ban from trading.
Bobby DeNault, Kalshi's lead lawyer, expressed approval of the decision on X, stating, "It doesn't matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences."
Kalshi had previously informed the BBC that its analysts detected unusual betting patterns in March within "mention markets"—contracts where users forecast whether a speaker will use specific common terms, such as particular countries, campaign slogans, or words. The company utilized account data to identify the user as a federal employee operating White House teleprompters and subsequently reported the activity to the regulator.
In a July statement, Kalshi emphasized the significant impact of political leaders' words, noting, "The words of political leaders like Presidents and Fed chairs cause billions of dollars of movement in FX markets, oil futures, [and] the stock market."
During the same month, the White House Management Office circulated a letter to aides, advising them against placing bets on prediction markets, according to administration officials who spoke with CBS News, the BBC's US media partner.
(Watch: Then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacts to the investigation into Perez in July)