Key Takeaways
- Gabriel Perez, who has served as Donald Trump’s teleprompter technician since 2016, is accused of profiting over $100,000 through Kalshi prediction markets by exploiting advance knowledge of presidential speeches.
- The trades focused on “Mentions” markets — betting contracts based on whether certain terms or topics would appear in Trump’s public addresses.
- Reports indicate Perez would abandon positions in real-time during speeches when Trump deviated from his prepared script, per ABC News sources.
- Kalshi’s internal monitoring systems detected the suspicious trading activity and escalated the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
- Following the allegations, the White House suspended Perez from his duties; President Trump condemned the reported behavior as disgraceful.
For nearly a decade, Gabriel Perez has been the person controlling President Donald Trump’s teleprompter displays. This position gave him early access to presidential speech content before it reached the public. New reporting from ABC News suggests he exploited that privileged access for financial gain.
According to Thursday’s ABC News investigation, Perez is now in discussions with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regarding accusations that he leveraged confidential information to place strategic bets on Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction marketplace.
Kalshi offers specialized “Mentions” markets where traders can wager on whether particular words or subjects will surface during public speeches. The allegations suggest Perez exploited this feature across more than a dozen presidential addresses throughout approximately three months. His betting activity reportedly included major events like the State of the Union address and Trump’s appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January.
His total profits from these allegedly improper trades exceeded $100,000.
The Trading Strategy Explained
With advance access to Trump’s prepared remarks, Perez would have known exactly which words were scripted to appear. Given Trump’s well-documented tendency to ad-lib and stray from scripted content, Perez allegedly capitalized on these deviations by modifying his betting positions during live speeches, exiting trades whenever the President skipped over prepared sections.
Kalshi identified the questionable trading patterns through its compliance and surveillance infrastructure. Once detected, the platform promptly escalated the matter to federal regulators. When contacted, a CFTC representative declined to confirm or deny any ongoing investigation.
The White House responded to the revelations by placing Perez on administrative leave pending further review. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that President Trump characterized the alleged conduct as “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace.”
Prediction Markets Face Mounting Insider Trading Concerns
This incident emerges during a period of heightened examination of prediction markets and their vulnerability to insider manipulation.
Earlier this year, a member of the U.S. Army faced criminal charges for using classified intelligence to place a $400,000 wager on Polymarket regarding Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Similarly, in May, a Google software engineer was indicted for exploiting proprietary company search analytics to generate $1.2 million in Polymarket profits.
Additionally, six Polymarket users collectively earned approximately $1 million by betting on imminent U.S. military action against Iran in late February — positioning themselves just hours before reports emerged of explosions in Tehran.
Legislative action has followed these controversies. In June, Republican Representative Bryan Steil proposed legislation prohibiting members of Congress and their immediate family members from participating in prediction markets involving political events. The Senate has implemented a similar self-imposed trading ban on these platforms.
Both Kalshi and Polymarket have publicly committed to implementing enhanced safeguards against insider trading. The Perez investigation now serves as a critical examination of whether these protective measures are genuinely effective and properly enforced.
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