A longtime teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $172,000 after federal regulators found he secretly gambled on the content of the speeches he was hired to help deliver.
According to Mediaite, Gabriel Perez was accused of exploiting inside knowledge by using Kalshi, an online prediction and gambling platform, to place wagers on more than a dozen of Trumps speeches. Perez reportedly made more than $100,000 in Kalshis Mentions market, where users bet on whether specific words, phrases, or topics will appear in a public address over a three-month span that covered a December 2025 Trump speech, the State of the Union, an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and a March Medal of Honor ceremony.
Kalshi flagged Perezs activity as suspicious and alerted its regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), triggering a federal probe into the misuse of nonpublic information. On Friday night, the CFTC announced it had reached a settlement with Perez, who had worked for Trump since 2016 until his betting scheme came to light this year.
Under the order, Perez must disgorge the profits he made from his unlawful trading totaling $107,539.02 and pay a civil monetary penalty of $65,000, representing a substantial discount under the Division of Enforcements new cooperation advisory because of Perezs exemplary cooperation with the CFTC, the agency stated. Perez agreed to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. Under the order, a three-year trading ban is imposed on Perez.
The case underscores growing concern among regulators about prediction markets and the potential for abuse by insiders with access to sensitive political or military information. In a separate but related matter, the Department of Justice in April indicted Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a U.S. special operations soldier accused of profiting from the January abduction of then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, alleging he made more than $409,000 on Polymarket by betting on Maduros ouster; Van Dyke has pleaded not guilty.
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