A White House employee who works with the president's teleprompter managed to turn insider information into pure profit. This concerns Gabriel Perez, who has been servicing Donald Trump's speeches since 2016. Using the Kalshi betting platform, he earned over $100,000 by gaining access to speech texts long before they were publicly delivered.
The scheme turned out to be embarrassingly simple. On Kalshi, there are "Mentions" markets where users bet on whether a particular word or topic will appear in a public speech. Perez, having the final versions of the texts on hand, placed trades on dozens of Trump's speeches over three months, including the February State of the Union address.
Key nuance: the president is known for his tendency to improvise. As Trump himself admitted in January during a speech in Detroit, he deviates from the teleprompter "about 80% of the time." Therefore, Perez had to act flexibly — he closed positions right during the speech if the planned words were not spoken from the podium. This is not just luck, but a cold-blooded calculation using privileged access.
Reaction from the Platform and Regulator
The Kalshi team quickly flagged suspicious activity. According to Chief Compliance Officer Bobby Deno, the information was immediately forwarded to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The platform has already implemented three new market protection tools, including risk scoring systems and employment verification. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, screening mechanisms blocked over 100 suspicious insider trading deals, and more than 20 cases were referred to law enforcement.
Notably, the presidential administration warned employees about the ban on betting related to internal information back in March. However, Perez continues to work as Trump's teleprompter operator. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office declined to file criminal charges. Most likely, the CFTC will offer a settlement: Perez will return the profit and commit to ceasing such trades.
This case is not isolated. Previously, a U.S. Army soldier turned $33,000 into $410,000 on Polymarket using secret data about Maduro. Even Goldman Sachs has restricted employee participation in bets on Kalshi and Polymarket, indicating growing concern on Wall Street.
Expert opinion: This incident is a wake-up call for the entire predictive market industry. Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket offer unique tools, but their Achilles' heel is vulnerability to insiders. Until regulators and the platforms themselves implement strict verification and real-time monitoring mechanisms, trust in such markets will be undermined. Perez is just the tip of the iceberg; the actual volume of undisclosed insider trades could be many times greater.