The White House "official" teleprompter operator made over $100,000 by predicting market moves using insider information

Original: Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author: Golem (@web3_golem)

Recently, another insider trading scandal was revealed within the White House.

A White House staffer profited hundreds of thousands of dollars through insider information trading on prediction markets. The true identity of this insider was merely a long-time operator of Trump's teleprompter. The employee has now been suspended without pay.

This teleprompter operator became the third insider disclosed by the U.S. Department of Justice to profit significantly from prediction markets using insider information, following a special forces soldier involved in the Maduro capture operation and a Google security engineer. (Related reading: 'Over 4 Months, Polymarket Helped Trump Catch a Military Operation Leaker, But at What Cost...' and 'Peeking at Answers Before the Exam? Google Engineer Entangled in Polymarket Insider Trading Case')

Reported by Kalshi, Funds Frozen, But Ultimately No Criminal Liability

The protagonist is Gabriel Perez, who has been responsible for operating Trump's teleprompter since 2016. Perez's path to this job was quite dramatic. In 2016, Trump's campaign team urgently needed a teleprompter operator. They searched Google for "teleprompter" and found the company Perez worked for. That's how Perez was hired by the Trump team.

Gabriel Perez

Although hired by chance, Perez gradually became one of Trump's closest assistants over these 10 years. Politico even called Perez "the only person Trump trusts." He often receives last-minute revisions to public speeches directly from Trump himself.

Thus, Perez became one of the few people to get early access to Trump's complete speech drafts and had final review power over almost all of Trump's prepared remarks. This power was not insignificant. Perez's official White House title was Deputy Assistant to the President and Technical Advisor, with an annual salary of $175,000, only $20,000 less than senior staff like Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Such a salary already places one among the high-income earners in the U.S., but the greedy Perez wasn't satisfied.

When prediction markets became popular, countless players started betting on whether Trump would mention specific words in his speeches. Perez realized his "privileged" position could bring him even more wealth.

CFTC investigators found that over about three months, Perez placed bets on more than a dozen of Trump's speeches, profiting over $100,000 in total. These included Trump's prime-time speech in December last year, his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January this year, the State of the Union address in February, and his speech at the Medal of Honor ceremony in March.

The U.S. President's statutory annual salary is $400,000. Including various allowances, the President receives approximately $569,000 per year. If Perez hadn't been caught, at his rate of earning $100,000 in three months, his annual income would have surpassed the President's salary, even if his power was less.

But even knowing the speech content in advance, Perez couldn't always successfully predict which words Trump would mention, because Trump often deviates from the script and "improvises." When Trump skipped a word Perez had bet on during a speech, Perez would immediately sell to cut his losses. During a speech at the Detroit Economic Club in January, Trump himself admitted that he doesn't look at the teleprompter 80% of the time.

Similar to the experiences of the special forces soldier and the Google security engineer, Perez's exposure also came from the prediction market platform's proactive reporting. Perez frequently used Kalshi for insider trading. Starting in March this year, Kalshi's monitoring system detected some abnormal trades related to specific words mentioned in Trump's speeches and thus flagged Perez.

After an internal investigation, Kalshi quickly froze over $90,000 in Perez's account and handed the case over to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Upon learning of this, Trump commented that it was "disgraceful" and personally decided to suspend Perez without pay.

Driven by greed, Perez ended up losing everything: he couldn't recover his profits from the prediction market and lost his original job. However, compared to the special forces soldier and the Google security engineer, Perez was lucky because the U.S. judicial authorities did not file criminal charges against him, so he won't go to jail.

During the investigation, the CFTC notified the federal prosecutor in Manhattan, but the prosecutor declined to pursue a criminal investigation. According to sources familiar with the matter, CFTC regulators have indicated a willingness to reach a settlement with Perez and have discussed terms with him. The result is that Perez must return the profits and cease similar trading activities in the future.

Perez is Just the Beginning of Cleaning Up Insiders in the 'Mention' Market

The reason Perez won't go to jail is that prosecutors believe his actions didn't constitute a criminal offense. He neither leaked important government information in advance nor endangered national security. As Trump said, "It's just disgraceful," undermining the integrity of public officials.

In March this year, the White House warned staff not to use non-public information to bet on prediction markets. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle stated, "The White House has strict ethical standards, and we expect all staff and officials to comply with these standards."

But Perez is definitely not the only White House staffer profiting from insider information. Trump himself, who openly charges for his insider tips, is in no position to critique this teleprompter operator. (Related reading: '$100,000 a Month – Trump Starts Selling "Alpha"')

It's no wonder Perez couldn't resist the temptation. The "mention" market in prediction markets is indeed the easiest category to manipulate. When the cost of participation for insiders is driven extremely low, while the potential returns are extremely high, it ceases to be a moral issue and becomes a matter of mechanism design. In the face of profit, even outwardly respectable and righteous politicians cannot guarantee they will never cross that line.

The "mention" market allows users to bet on specific words, phrases, or topics that will be mentioned in public speeches. Compared to other events (like political elections or sports events), the cost of cheating in the "mention" market is extremely low. It's not limited to people like Perez who know the speech content in advance. For the speaker themselves, cheating is as simple as saying a word, literally making "one word worth a thousand dollars."

At the Grammy Awards ceremony in February this year, host Trevor Noah, after saying "Welcome back to the Grammys," suddenly shouted "Potato." While everyone was confused, Trevor Noah continued, "If you bet on me saying this word on Polymarket, you made a killing," and congratulated user "Noah 22." However, in reality, the "what will be mentioned at the Grammys" prediction on Polymarket didn't even have "potato" as an option, and the user "noah-22" was entirely fictional.

Grammy host shouts 'potato' during the awards ceremony

Some later analyses considered this a Polymarket marketing stunt, but it already demonstrated the speaker's ability to manipulate the "mention" market.

An even more direct example: during Coinbase's third-quarter earnings call in October 2025, just as the meeting was about to end, CEO Brian Armstrong mentioned he noticed many people were betting on what he would say during the call. So he opened Polymarket and, reading through the options, said every single word, ultimately resulting in all outcomes for that market having a 100% win rate, ending in a draw.

These are just two examples showcasing the speaker's control over the "mention" market. Of course, there are likely many others profiting from this beneath the surface. However, as regulatory scrutiny over prediction markets intensifies, all insiders in the "mention" market might eventually be purged, with Perez being just the beginning.

Last month, Kalshi updated its policy, requiring users to disclose their employers. Kalshi's Head of Enforcement, Bobby DeNault, explained the reason: "If you possess certain information due to your job or employment relationship, and you have a related legal duty, you are obligated not to appropriate this information for yourself or use it for personal gain." Polymarket has not yet made such strict disclosure requirements for its users, but in the increasingly compliance-focused prediction market track, stricter compliance requirements from Polymarket are likely coming soon.

From the special forces soldier to the Google engineer to the White House teleprompter operator, prediction markets are steadily cleansing themselves of insider trading. Simultaneously, the market is undergoing a process of disillusionment. I once thought these markets reflected collective wisdom, but in reality, they were just ATMs for a handful of insiders.

While cleansing insider trading will make prediction markets more compliant, it also moves them further from the truth and closer to being pure casinos.