Then-candidate Trump speaking in front of a teleprompter during a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada in 2024.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Federal regulators are in settlement talks with President Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, who is alleged to have made nearly $100,000 on the prediction market site Kalshi, according to two people with knowledge of the probe who were not authorized to speak publicly.
He is suspected of profiting off of his access to the president’s prepared remarks on a type of betting on Kalshi known as “mention markets,” where people wager on words and expressions the president will or will not say during public events.
Prediction markets allow people to bet on elections, global policy or even what color tie the president will wear. The markets have exploded in growth in recent months, leading to several instances of high-profile insider trading. But this marks the first time someone inside the White House has been investigated for allegedly abusing that access for prediction market profits.
Gabriel Perez, who has worked for the president since 2016, is now negotiating with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over his alleged lucrative betting activity on the “mention markets.”
Ahead of Trump’s address to the nation later on Thursday, Kalshi traders have already wagered more than $800,000 on whether the president will say words like “Hormuz,” or “rigged election,” or “fake news.”
In the case of Perez, Kalshi’s surveillance systems detected unusual betting on “mention” markets involving the president that did not follow typical behavior, and when the company examined the accounts behind it, investigators saw that he was a federal employee, according to a source with direct knowledge of the inquiry.
Records show that as a deputy assistant to the president, Perez was paid $175,000 a year. Trump would sometimes make references to him during appearances, like he did during a 2024 campaign stop in Reno, Nevada in 2024.
“I have a guy, Gabe, he’s excellent. I’ve had some real bad ones, but I have Gabe, some of the bad ones, they go so fast. I will go and I say, slow the damn thing,” Trump said. “No, a good one is really like gold.”
Perez is currently on unpaid administrative leave, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, calling the actions “a disgrace.”
In a statement, Kalshi credited its detection tools with catching Perez.
“Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation. We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral,” said Robert DeNault, who heads enforcement at Kalshi.
Kalshi froze about $90,000 of Perez’s profits and he has been banned from betting on the site, one of the sources not authorized to speak publicly said.
Perez did not return a request for comment. ABC News first reported on the investigation into Perez.
The president’s unpredictable and digressive speaking style can make for highly volatile trading on the site’s “mention markets,” where the odds of Trump uttering a particular word or phrases fluctuate drastically, with traders trying to forecast what subject he may veer to next.
Some traders who consider “mention” markets something of a full time job have installed TV antennas to get a tiny fraction-of-a-second advantage during live events.
Using non-public information to win big or manipulate markets on Kalshi is prohibited by the platform’s rules. Such behavior could also be criminally prosecuted as wire fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering.
It is not clear if the Department of Justice is examining the case of Perez.
In March, White House staff received a memo warning against using nonpublic government information to place bets on Kalshi and its biggest competitor, Polymarket.
The memo, which was reviewed by ReadNOW, stated that it is a criminal offense for anyone inside the White House to “buy” or “sell” on the sites. Prediction markets offer “yes” or “no” contracts that change in price based on the speculation of bettors. Aides in the White House were told in the memo that misusing government information “is a very serious offence and will not be tolerated.”
In April, federal prosecutors charged a U.S. Army special forces soldier for making $400,000 on Polymarket ahead of the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
The following month, a Google software engineer was charged with using confidential company information to make $1.2 million on Polymarket, for correctly guessing on Google search trends.
Others have been under investigation, too, including former Republican congressman George Santos who investigators say pumped up a Kalshi market by claiming he would attend Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address, only to cash out on a “no” trade when he skipped it.