Daily Weird News Report
A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to pay $172,539.02 after federal regulators said he used advance access to Donald Trump’s speeches to place bets on an online prediction market.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Gabriel Perez wagered on Kalshi from December through February while working in the White House. The contracts were tied to words or phrases Trump might use in speeches, according to the agency.
Regulators said Perez’s job gave him access to speech materials before Trump delivered them. The CFTC maintained that he misappropriated that nonpublic information for personal gain and violated a duty of trust and confidence.
Under the order, Perez must return $107,539.02 in alleged profits and pay a $65,000 civil penalty. He also agreed to stop engaging in further violations of federal market-manipulation laws and CFTC rules, and received a three-year trading ban.
The agency described the financial settlement as a substantial discount, citing what it called Perez’s exemplary cooperation with the investigation. The CFTC also thanked Kalshi for assisting with the matter.
Perez left his White House position about a month before the regulator announced the order, according to the report. It was not clear whether he resigned or was dismissed. The White House had previously said he was placed on unpaid leave amid an investigation into reports that he used inside knowledge to win more than $100,000 betting on what Trump would say at major events, including his State of the Union address in February.
At the time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the reported conduct deeply unfortunate and a disgrace. Personnel records listed Perez’s annual salary at $175,000.
The case adds to scrutiny of prediction markets, where users wager on future public events and trends. The report noted that federal prosecutors had also charged a US soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, with allegedly making a $400,000 bet on Polymarket while working on an operation involving Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Kalshi had separately announced fines against three political candidates who bet on their own elections.
Trump has defended prediction markets and argued that federal regulators, rather than individual states, should oversee them.
