Federal financial regulators have penalized a former White House teleprompter operator $172,000 after finding he used advance knowledge of President Donald Trump’s speeches to place winning online bets.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the action against Gabriel Perez on Friday. Under the order, Perez must give up $107,539.02 in trading profits and pay a $65,000 civil fine. Regulators also banned him from prediction market trading for three years.
Between December 2025 and February 2026, Perez used nonpublic speech information to trade on “mention markets,” according to the agency. These markets let users bet on whether a speaker will use specific words or phrases, such as campaign slogans, country names, or political topics.
Perez had worked for Trump since 2016. The White House suspended him last month after prediction market platform Kalshi detected suspicious activity and alerted federal authorities. A White House official confirmed late last month that Perez no longer works for the federal government.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last month that Trump was informed about the case and “believes it is deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace.”
Kalshi officials welcomed the enforcement action on Friday.
”It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences,” Robert DeNault, head of enforcement and legal counsel at Kalshi, wrote on social media.
The case comes amid growing scrutiny over insider trading on event-based betting platforms. In April, authorities charged a U.S. Army soldier for allegedly using classified knowledge about a top-secret mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to win more than $400,000 on rival platform Polymarket.
In response to concerns, both platforms have updated their rules this year. Kalshi now blocks politicians, athletes, and specific groups from wagering in certain markets, while Polymarket revised its policies to explicitly prohibit trades based on confidential data.
