Gabriel Perez is accused of using Kalshi to bet on events including Trump’s State of the Union address in February and a Medal of Honor ceremony in March
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Teleprompter-operator-Gabriel-Perez-082926-2-c87a7fbd22bd457fb69fcbfee2f8a014.jpg "Teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez cleans a teleprompter during an election night watch party for Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 05, 2024")
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NEED TO KNOW
- Longtime White House teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez was found to have used insider knowledge to make more than $107,500 by betting on the contents of President Donald Trump’s speeches
- Perez has been fined by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and banned from trading on prediction markets for three years
- The White House previously placed Perez on unpaid leave, calling his actions a “disgrace” and a breach of ethics guidelines
A longtime White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to pay more than $172,000 after he made more than $100,000 through prediction markets by betting on the contents of President Donald Trump’s speeches.
Gabriel Perez used “material, nonpublic information” he obtained through his work as a teleprompter operator for Trump, 80, to place trades in “mention markets” — a kind of betting that allows people to wager on real-life events, like the president’s spoken addresses, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday, Aug. 28.
Perez has been ordered to pay the money he made in profits, $107,539.02, as well as a civil penalty of $65,000, according to the CFTC. He has also been banned from trading on prediction markets for three years.
Credit: Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty
“In his position, Perez had access to presidential speeches prior to those speeches being delivered and Perez misappropriated that information — in breach of his duty of trust and confidence — to trade presidential mention market contracts, generating over $107,500 in profits,” the CFTC said.
The agency said Perez made his bets through the platform Kalshi, which assisted in the investigation.
In a post shared on X, Bobby DeNault, Kalshi’s lead lawyer, said 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,” DeNault wrote. “It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law, and you will face the consequences.”
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Kalshi had contacted the CFTC about an account that appeared to exhibit unusual betting in mention markets, the BBC previously reported.
After investigating the account, Kalshi discovered it was linked to Perez, a federal employee with direct access to Trump’s speeches through his operation of the teleprompter.
CFTC investigators claimed that Perez, who has worked at the White House since 2016, bet on more than a dozen of Trump’s speeches over three months, according to ABC News.
Some of the events that Perez is accused of wagering on are Trump’s State of the Union address in February, a Medal of Honor ceremony in March, an address at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January, and a December primetime speech.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on July 16 that Trump was aware of the accusations against Perez and that the teleprompter operator had been put on unpaid administrative leave.
Per Leavitt, Trump said Perez’s actions were a “disgrace” and placed him on leave himself.
“The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle previously told ABC News.
The White House did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Saturday, Aug. 29.
