白宫“御用”提词员，靠内幕消息预测捞金超10万美元

Original｜Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author｜Golem (@web3_golem)

Recently, a new insider trading scandal broke out within the White House.

A White House staffer made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit on prediction markets using inside information. The insider's true identity was merely a long-time operator of Trump's teleprompter. The employee has now been suspended without pay.

This teleprompter operator becomes the third insider, following a special forces soldier involved in the Maduro capture operation and a Google security engineer, disclosed by the US Department of Justice for making substantial profits on prediction markets using inside information. (Related reading: Over 4 Months, Polymarket Helped Trump Catch a Military Operation Leaker, But at What Cost…》Peeking at Answers Before the Test? Google Engineer Caught in Polymarket Insider Trading Case)

Reported by Kalshi, Funds Frozen, but Facing No Criminal Charges

The protagonist, Gabriel Perez, has been operating Trump's teleprompter since 2016. How Perez got the job was quite dramatic. In 2016, Trump's campaign team urgently needed a teleprompter operator, so they searched Google for "teleprompter," found Perez's company, and hired him.

Gabriel Perez

Although hired by chance, Perez gradually became one of Trump's closest aides over the decade. Politico even called him "the only person Trump trusts," often receiving last-minute changes to Trump's public speeches directly from the President himself.

Consequently, Perez became one of the few people who could access Trump's complete speech drafts in advance and had final say on 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 Adviser, 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 places him among the high-income earners in the US, but the greedy Perez was not satisfied.

When prediction markets became popular, countless players began betting on whether Trump would mention specific words in his speeches. Perez realized his "privilege" 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, totaling over $100,000 in profit. These included Trump's primetime 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 Trump's speech at the Medal of Honor ceremony in March.

The US President's annual salary is legally $400,000. With allowances, the President receives about $569,000 annually. If Perez hadn't been caught, his rate of earning $100,000 in three months would mean his annual income, though wielding less power than the President, would exceed the President's salary.

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

Similar to the special forces soldier and the Google security engineer, Perez's exposure 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, thus identifying Perez.

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

Driven by greed, Perez ultimately lost everything. Not only could he not retrieve his profits from the prediction markets, but he also lost his job. However, compared to the special forces soldier and the Google security engineer, Perez was fortunate because US judicial authorities did not file criminal charges against him, meaning he wouldn't go to prison.

During the investigation, the CFTC notified federal prosecutors in Manhattan, but they declined to pursue a criminal investigation. According to sources, CFTC regulators have indicated a willingness to reach a settlement with Perez and have discussed terms with him, resulting in a requirement for Perez to return the profits and cease similar trading in the future.

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

The reason Perez avoided prison is that prosecutors did not consider his actions a criminal offense. He neither leaked important government information in advance nor harmed national security. As Trump said, it was "merely reprehensible," damaging the integrity of government public officials.

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

But Perez is definitely not the only White House staffer profiting from inside information. Trump, who openly runs paid subscription groups, is hardly in a position to criticize 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 for insiders to participate is extremely low, and potential returns are extremely high, it ceases to be a moral issue and becomes a problem of mechanism design. In the face of profit, outwardly respectable politicians with righteous stances cannot guarantee they will never cross that line.

The "mention" market allows users to bet on specific words, phrases, or topics mentioned in public speeches. Compared to other events (like political elections, 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 easy as saying a word, turning the phrase "a single word is worth a thousand gold pieces" into reality.

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 fortune," and congratulated user "Noah 22." However, the prediction market on Polymarket for "what will be mentioned at the Grammys" didn't even have "potato" as an option, and the user "noah-22" was entirely fictional.

Grammy host shouts 'potato' during the ceremony

Some later analyses suggested this was a Polymarket marketing campaign, but it already demonstrated the host's ability to manipulate the "mention" market.

An even more direct example occurred in October 2025 during Coinbase's third-quarter earnings call. Near the end of the call, CEO Brian Armstrong mentioned he noticed many people betting on prediction markets about what he would say during the call. He then opened Polymarket and, reading from the options, said every single word listed, ultimately causing every outcome in that market to resolve as 100%, ending in a tie.

These are just two examples demonstrating the control insiders can have over the "mention" market. Undoubtedly, there are many others profiting from this, remaining hidden. However, as regulation of prediction markets deepens, insiders in the "mention" market may eventually be completely purged. Perez is just the beginning.

Last month, Kalshi updated its policy, requiring users to disclose their workplaces. Kalshi's Head of Enforcement, Bobby DeNault, explained the rationale: "If you have information due to your job or employment, and you have a legal duty related to it, you are obligated not to appropriate that information for yourself or use it for private gain." Polymarket has not yet imposed such strict disclosure requirements on its users, but in the increasingly compliance-focused prediction market space, stricter compliance requirements from Polymarket are likely on the horizon.

From the special forces soldier, to the Google engineer, and now to the White House teleprompter operator, prediction markets are systematically cleansing insider trading. Simultaneously, the market is undergoing a process of disenchantment. Once thought to reflect collective wisdom, it is increasingly revealed as merely a cash machine for a few insiders.

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