Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
The White House has suspended a longtime teleprompter operator after he was accused of using his insider access to President Donald Trump's speeches to make more than $100,000 in bets on a prediction market platform, an incident the president described as "deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace". Gabriel Perez, who has operated Trump's teleprompter since the 2016 presidential campaign, was placed on unpaid administrative leave on Thursday, July 16, 2026, and will no longer work at the White House.
According to reports from ABC News, Perez allegedly made over $100,000 by betting on the prediction market Kalshi, wagering on specific words or phrases that would appear in the president's speeches. The bets covered several major public addresses, including the State of the Union address in February, remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and a December primetime address. In some instances, Perez reportedly backed out of bets mid-speech when Trump veered off script and skipped sections containing words he had wagered on.
The scheme was uncovered when Kalshi's surveillance team detected unusual betting patterns starting in March. The platform's analysts identified that the account holder was a federal employee who also worked as a White House teleprompter operator. Kalshi promptly flagged the suspicious trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator overseeing prediction markets, and froze more than $90,000 in profits before they could be withdrawn. The operator is currently in settlement talks with the regulator.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the suspension during a briefing, stating, "I'm aware of the report, the president is too, I spoke with him about it". She emphasized that the decision to place the operator on unpaid leave was made by the president himself. "There are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House that explicitly state not to do this," Leavitt added. She also confirmed that a different operator would handle the teleprompter for Trump's Thursday night address on election integrity.
The investigation comes amid heightened scrutiny of prediction markets and insider trading in the United States. A US soldier is currently facing federal charges for using classified information to bet on prediction markets related to the capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, allegedly making more than $400,000. The Department of Justice has begun pursuing its first insider trading prosecutions tied to prediction markets. Kalshi and its competitor Polymarket have recently implemented new surveillance tools and industry guardrails. Notably, Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., has been an advisor to Kalshi since January 2025.
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