The American derivatives regulator has concluded its investigation into Gabriel Perez, who was accused of using his official position to obtain illegal profits in the prediction market. The total financial obligations of the former teleprompter operator in the presidential administration amounted to $172,539: of which $107,539 is the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and $65,000 is a civil penalty.
The essence of the CFTC's claims is that Perez, between December 2025 and February 2026, having access to closed texts of presidential speeches before their public delivery, systematically entered into contracts on mentions of the head of state on the Kalshi platform. This is a classic case of insider trading, where an informational advantage was directly converted into a financial result.
In addition to monetary penalties, the regulator ordered Perez to immediately cease such practices and imposed a three-year ban on participation in any trading. Such a ban duration is a signal to the market about the seriousness of the CFTC's intentions regarding integrity on new, rapidly growing platforms like Kalshi, where volumes and liquidity are not yet comparable to traditional exchanges, but jurisdictional risks are already quite real.
My analysis
This case is an important precedent for the entire political prediction industry. It clearly demonstrates that the CFTC views event contracts as full-fledged financial instruments, not as a game. For market participants, this is a signal: any use of non-public information, even if obtained not at a bank or hedge fund, but in a government structure, will be punished to the fullest extent. Kalshi's liquidity may temporarily suffer, but in the long term, such measures will only strengthen trust in the platform — without market integrity, there will be neither institutional money nor sustainable growth here.