A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to pay more than $172,000 over bets he placed on what 
Donald Trump would say in his speeches. Gabriel Perez must give up $107,539.02 in profits from the trades, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Friday in announcing the settlement.
What did the regulator find? Perez must also pay a $65,000 civil penalty and has been banned from trading for three years, the BBC reported. The commission said he had "misappropriated" his prior knowledge of Trump's speeches to place bets "in breach of his duty of trust and confidence", and that the penalty had been reduced because of his "exemplary co-operation" with the investigation. The trades, made between December 2025 and February 2026, concerned what the president would say during addresses and were placed on Kalshi, a prediction markets platform where users can bet on real-world events.
How was the trading detected? Kalshi, which previously told the BBC that its analysts had noticed unusual betting on "mention markets" in March, said it used account data to find that the user had been a federal employee operating White House teleprompters, and reported the activity to the regulator. Mention markets are contracts through which users predict whether a speaker will use common terms, such as specific countries, campaign slogans or words. "The words of political leaders like presidents and Fed chairs cause billions of dollars of movement in FX markets, oil futures [and] the stock market," the company said in a statement in July. Its lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, welcomed the decision on X: "It doesn't matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences."
What has the White House said? The White House had not commented, the BBC reported, but in July then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Perez was on unpaid leave and would not return to his post. The same month, the White House Management Office sent aides a letter telling them not to place bets on prediction markets, administration officials told CBS News.
Figures referenced: Donald Trump. — JudgeMarket.
