A White House teleprompter operator allegedly turned advance knowledge of President Trump’s speeches into a six-figure payday on Kalshi, and federal regulators are now picking through the receipts.
Gabriel Perez, who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, is under investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for reportedly placing strategic bets on Kalshi’s “mention markets,” those contracts that let traders wager on whether specific words or topics will appear in a presidential address. His alleged profits exceeded $100K over a three-month period. Roughly $90K of that is now frozen.
How the scheme allegedly worked
Kalshi’s mention markets are beautifully simple. Will the president say “tariffs” during the State of the Union? Will he mention a specific country? Traders bet yes or no, and the market resolves based on the actual transcript.
Perez allegedly leveraged his access to prepared remarks across more than a dozen speeches between late 2025 and early 2026. Those addresses reportedly included the State of the Union and a Medal of Honor ceremony, events where the text is typically finalized well in advance.
