Recently, another insider trading scandal has been exposed in the United States White House.
An employee at the White House profited over $100,000 through insider information trading in the prediction markets. The true identity of this insider is merely a long-time teleprompter operator for Trump, who has now been suspended without pay.
This teleprompter operator has become the third individual disclosed by the U.S. Department of Justice to have made substantial profits in the prediction markets using insider information, following the special forces member involved in the Maduro arrest operation and a Google security engineer.
Reported by Kalshi, Funds Frozen, But No Criminal Charges Were Ultimately Filed
The main character is named Gabriel Perez, who has been responsible for operating the teleprompter during Trump's speeches since 2016. Perez's journey to this role is quite dramatic. In 2016, Trump's campaign team urgently needed a teleprompter operator, so when they searched "teleprompter" on Google, they found Perez's company, and Perez was hired by the Trump team in this way.
Although Perez was hired by chance, over the past 10 years, he has gradually become one of Trump's closest aides. The U.S. Politico even stated, "Perez has become the only person Trump trusts," and he often receives last-minute changes to public speeches directly from Trump.
As a result, Perez became one of the few people who could get the complete Trump speech in advance and had final approval for almost all of Trump's prepared speech drafts. This power, albeit small, is significant. Perez's formal title in the White House is Deputy Presidential Assistant and Technical Advisor, with an annual salary of $175,000, only $20,000 less than top officials such as Chief of Staff Susie Wells and Press Secretary Caroline Levitt.
Such a salary is already considered high income in the United States, but the greedy Perez was not satisfied.
As the prediction markets became popular, with numerous participants betting on which specific words Trump would "mention" in a speech, Perez realized that his "privilege" could bring him even more wealth.
CFTC investigators found that Perez placed bets on Trump's speeches over about three months, earning over $100,000 in total. This included Trump's prime-time speech in December last year, his speech at the Davos World Economic Forum in January this year, the State of the Union address in February, and Trump's remarks at the Medal of Honor ceremony in March.
The U.S. President's annual salary is $400,000, but with various allowances, the President receives about $569,000 per year. If Perez had not been caught, at the rate of earning $100,000 in three months, although he does not have the power of the President, his annual income would exceed the President's salary.
However, even with advance knowledge of the speech content, Perez could not always successfully predict which words Trump would mention in the speech because Trump often deviated from the prepared speech and "ad-libbed." When Trump skipped a word Perez had bet on in the speech, he would immediately sell with a stop-loss order. Trump admitted in January at the Detroit Economic Club speech that he does not look at the teleprompter 80% of the time.
Like the encounter between a Navy SEAL and a Google security engineer, Perez's exposure also originated from a whistleblower report on the prediction market platform. Perez often used Kalshi for insider trading. Starting in March this year, Kalshi's monitoring system detected some unusual trades related to specific words mentioned in Trump's speeches, which led to the discovery of Perez.
After an internal investigation, Kalshi promptly froze over $90,000 in Perez's account and handed it over to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Upon learning of this, Trump described it as "disgraceful," personally decided to suspend Perez without pay during the suspension period.
Perez's greed eventually led to his downfall. Not only could he not recover the profits from the prediction market, but he also lost his original job. However, compared to the Navy SEAL and Google security engineer, Perez is fortunate because U.S. law enforcement did not bring criminal charges against him, so Perez does not have to go to jail.
During the investigation, the CFTC had notified the Manhattan federal prosecutor, who refused to launch a criminal investigation. According to sources, CFTC's regulatory staff have expressed willingness to reach a settlement with Perez and have discussed the terms with him, requiring Perez to return the profits and cease similar transactions thereafter.
Perez is just the beginning of cleaning up the "mention" market insiders
The reason Perez didn't go to jail is because the prosecutor didn't see Perez's actions as constituting a criminal offense. He neither leaked government sensitive information beforehand nor caused harm to national security. As Trump put it, "This is just despicable," tarnishing the reputation of government officials.
In March of this year, the White House warned staff not to use non-public information to bet on prediction markets. White House spokesperson David Engel stated, "The White House has strict ethical guidelines, and we expect all staff and officials to adhere to these guidelines."
But Perez is definitely not the only White House staff member who has profited from insider information. Trump, who openly ran a paid subscription group for insider trading, is even less qualified to criticize this prompter operator.
No wonder Perez couldn't resist the temptation, as the "mention" market in the prediction markets is indeed the easiest category to manipulate. When the cost of participation for insiders is driven extremely low, while the potential return is high, it is no longer a moral issue but a mechanism design problem. Faced with personal gain, even politicians who appear respectable and hold a just stance cannot guarantee that they will never cross that line.
The gameplay in the "mention" market involves users betting on specific words, phrases, or topics that will be mentioned in a public speech. Compared to other events such as political elections or sports events, the cheating cost in the "mention" market is very low. Not limited to individuals like Perez who can know the speech content in advance, for the speaker, cheating is just a matter of a single sentence, turning "words of wisdom" into a tangible asset.
At the Grammy Awards in February, when host Trevor Noah said "Welcome back to the Grammys" and then suddenly shouted "Potato," leaving everyone puzzled, Trevor Noah continued, "If you bet on me saying this word on Polymarket, you would have made a fortune," and congratulated user "Noah 22." However, in reality, there was no option for "potato" in the Polymarket prediction for "What will be mentioned at the Grammy Awards." User "noah-22" was purely fictional.
Some post-event analysis suggested that this was a marketing stunt by Polymarket, but it already demonstrated the ability of the parties involved to manipulate the "mention" market.
There is a more direct example: In October 2025, during Coinbase's third-quarter earnings conference call, towards the end of the meeting, CEO Brian Armstrong mentioned he had noticed many people betting on the prediction market regarding what he would mention during this call. So, he opened Polymarket and read out all the options word for word, ultimately resulting in a 100% win rate for all outcomes, ending in a tie.
The above are just two examples showcasing individuals referencing market control, and there are certainly many more profiteers lurking beneath the surface. However, as regulatory scrutiny of prediction markets deepens, future insiders of the "reference" market may also be entirely purged, with Peres being just a start.
Last month, Kalshi updated its policy to require users to disclose their employer. Kalshi's head of enforcement, Bobby DeNault, explained the rationale behind this move, stating, "If you have access to certain information due to your job or employment relationship, and you have a legal obligation related to that, then you are obligated not to make this information your own or misuse it." Polymarket has not yet imposed such strict disclosure requirements on users, but in the increasingly tangled web of compliance in the prediction market race, it is believed that Polymarket's stricter compliance requirements are also on the way.
From a special forces soldier to a Google engineer to a White House teleprompter operator, the prediction market is gradually cleansing itself of insider trading. At the same time, the market is also undergoing a demystification of the prediction market, once thought to reflect collective wisdom, but in reality, it is just an ATM for a few insiders.
While the purge of insider trading will make prediction markets more compliant, it also distances them from the truth, bringing them closer to being merely a pure gambling den.
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