{"id":71684,"date":"2026-08-29T06:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T06:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/71684\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T06:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T06:57:17","slug":"white-house-teleprompter-operator-ordered-to-pay-172k-for-placing-prediction-market-bets-on-trumps-speeches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/71684\/","title":{"rendered":"White House teleprompter operator ordered to pay $172K for placing prediction market bets on Trump\u2019s speeches"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump who made online prediction trades<\/a> based on information from upcoming speeches has been ordered to pay $172,000, a federal agency said Friday night.<\/p>\n

Gabriel Perez used \u201cmaterial, nonpublic information\u201d he obtained through his job to place \u201ctrades\u201d on a prediction market, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a news release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perez was ordered to pay the money he made in profits, $107,539.02, as well as a civil penalty of $65,000.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also banned from trading on prediction markets for three years, the CFTC said.<\/p>\n

Perez made the trades through Kalshi. The CFTC said Kalshi assisted in the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Kalshi surveillance investigation caught a White House staffer engaging in prohibited trading activity. Today this individual was subjected to penalties by the CFTC and by our exchange,\u201d Bobby DeNault, Kalshi\u2019s lead lawyer, said in a post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday night. Perez could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The CFTC called it a case of insider trading, adding that Perez traded \u201cpresidential mention market contracts, which are event contracts reflecting words or phrases the President may use during his speeches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perez was a technical assistant to the president who had served as a teleprompter operator for Trump since 2016.<\/p>\n

The CFTC cited what it called Perez\u2019s \u201cexemplary cooperation\u201d in the case when announcing the fine and penalties Friday.<\/p>\n

Then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt<\/a> in July called the online trades a breach of ethics, and \u201cdeeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perez was placed on leave in July and Leavitt said at the time that \u201cthis individual will no longer be here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump who made online prediction trades based on information from upcoming speeches…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,9,7],"class_list":["post-71684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117177499442779007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}