A White House teleprompter operator who left his job amid allegations that he used inside knowledge to place bets on Donald Trump’s speeches in an online prediction market has been fined $172,000, according to federal regulators. Gabriel Pérez unlawfully exploited “material and non-public information” he collected through his work for the president to place bets on the Kalshi platform “for his personal benefit,” the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said in a press release. on Friday. The CFTC ordered Perez to “recover the profits he made from his illegal activities.” [conduct]” for a total of $107,539.02 and pay a civil penalty of $65,000, according to the agency’s press release. Such amounts represented “a substantial discount,” the CFTC added, attributing it to what the agency called “Perez’s exemplary cooperation” with its investigation into him. According to the CFTC, from December to February, while working as a teleprompter operator in the White House, Perez placed bets on Kalshi linked to words or phrases that Trump could Perez’s role in the White House gave him access to those speeches before the president delivered them, and he “misappropriated that information” for profit, violating “his duty of trust,” the CFTC said. Perez, in addition to being fined, “agreed to cease and desist from further violations” of federal laws prohibiting market manipulation and CFTC regulations, the CFTC said. He was also imposed a three-year trading ban. press release on Friday. About a month after the White House said he no longer had his job there, it was unclear whether Perez resigned or was fired. However, his departure came after he was reportedly placed on unpaid leave amid an investigation into whether he had used his insider knowledge to make more than $100,000 by betting on what Trump would say on big occasions, including his State of the Union address in February. At the time, Karoline Leavitt, had described reports of insider trading by Perez as “deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace.” Perez earned an annual salary of $175,000 for his teleprompter work, according to White House staff records. The case centered on Perez was just the latest to illustrate the continued proliferation of online prediction markets, which allow users to place speculative bets on public events and trends. For example, about four months before Pérez’s fine, federal prosecutors charged U.S. soldier Ken Van Dyke for allegedly placing a $400,000 bet on Kalshi’s rival platform, Polymarket, on whether Nicolás Maduro would be removed from Venezuela’s presidency. Van Dyke had worked on the operation to oust Maduro and extradite him to the United States on drug trafficking charges, according to prosecutors. his own elections, including one that bet on whether he would run for office before announcing an independent campaign for a US Senate seat in Virginia. Trump has defended the prediction market industry, with which his family has business ties. He has advocated against individual US states regulating those markets and has argued that the CFTC should carry out that function.
