White House teleprompter operator ordered to pay $172K for placing prediction market bets on Trump’s speeches
A former White House teleprompter operator has been fined $172,000 for using nonpublic information to place bets on prediction markets regarding presidential speeches. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission labeled the activity as insider trading.
Why it matters
The case highlights the growing regulatory scrutiny of prediction markets and the ethical challenges posed by the intersection of political access and financial speculation.
A teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump who made online prediction trades based on information from upcoming speeches has been ordered to pay $172,000, a federal agency said Friday night. Gabriel Perez used “material, nonpublic information” he obtained through his job to place “trades” on a prediction market, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a news release. Perez was ordered to pay the money he made in profits, $107,539.02, as well as a civil penalty of $65,000. He’s also banned from trading on prediction markets for three years, the CFTC said. Perez made the trades through Kalshi. The CFTC said Kalshi assisted in the matter. “A Kalshi surveillance investigation caught a White House staffer engaging in prohibited trading activity. Today this individual was subjected to penalties by the CFTC and by our exchange,” Bobby DeNault, Kalshi’s lead lawyer, said in a post on X.
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