Insider trading has long run rampant on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket. We’ve seen shady accounts profit from accurately predicting the US invasion of Venezuela, resulting in arrests, or correctly guess everything that was going to happen at this year’s Super Bowl half-time show.
Now, in a particularly egregious instance of the worrying trend, president Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator made tens of thousands of dollars by betting on Kalshi what the president would say, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
According to the sources, federal investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are in settlement talks with Trump’s technical assistant, Gabriel Perez, over allegations that he used inside knowledge to win more than $100,000.
That’s despite Trump being well-known for going on lengthy, off-script tirades during his infamously incoherent speeches.
Kalshi, which has started to crack down on insider trading, was alarmed by the activity.
“Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators,” Kalshi’s lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, told ABC in a statement.
Despite Trump being in the news today about manipulating markets by promoting companies on Truth Social, the White House claimed that it had “strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow.”
“The staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told ABC.
At the time of writing, Perez is still one of the president’s teleprompter operators, despite glaring evidence he was enriching himself on Kalshi. Given the Trump administration’s lengthy track record of throwing its staff under the bus following controversies, we wouldn’t be shocked to see the technical assistant get the axe sooner rather than later.
But we’re not holding our breath over any imminent federal rules and regulations aimed at prediction platforms.
Government insider trading allegations have plagued Trump’s second term. And Trump has long sided with prediction market companies in their fight with state gambling regulators. His family has extensive ties to the industry as well, with his son, Donald Trump Jr, serving as an advisor to both Polymarket and Kalshi.
Netizens were left shaking their heads following the latest revelation.
“Even his teleprompter guy is corrupt,” one user wrote on Bluesky.
“Feel like it’s been too long since there was a prediction-market scandal?” reporter Ben Horney tweeted. “You’re in luck.”
More on Kalshi: Kalshi Says It’s Busted a MrBeast Staffer for Insider Trading