President Donald Trump’s former teleprompter operator must pay a civil penalty after he used inside knowledge of Trump’s speeches to place bets on a prediction market, a federal regulatory agency announced Friday.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission settled insider trading charges against Gabriel Perez a month after he stopped working for the federal government. Perez is one of a few government employees who have been investigated for using sensitive information to gamble on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket.
The agency ordered Perez to forfeit the $107,539 in profits he made from the bets and pay a fine of $65,000. Perez received a “substantial discount” on the fine due to his “exemplary cooperation” with CFTC investigators, the news release said.
Perez is banned from trading on marketplaces for three years.
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Federal investigators say Perez used his knowledge of Trump’s speeches to place bets on Kalshi between December 2025 and February 2026 by gambling on words or phrases that the president may use. Kalshi’s surveillance team flagged the activity to the CFTC, according to the company’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault.
Perez had misappropriated his access to Trump’s speeches, the CFTC said Friday, “in breach of his duty of trust and confidence.”
Trump thought the incident was “deeply unfortunate,” former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said July 16. At the time, Perez had been placed on unpaid leave.
Lawmakers from both parties have advocated for legislation prohibiting federal elected officials and government employees from using insider information to place bets on prediction markets.
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