A former White House teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, has agreed to yield over $107,000 in gains and pay a $65,000 monetary penalty following a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigation into insider trading on prediction platforms.
Working in the federal government between December 2025 and February 2026, Perez used advance access to draft speeches of President Donald Trump to trade event contracts on KalshiEX. These contracts wagered on whether specific words or phrases would appear during presidential addresses. Alongside financial restitution, Perez accepted a three-year trading ban from CFTC-regulated derivative markets.
The enforcement action highlights growing vulnerabilities within decentralized and event-based prediction platforms:
- Military Intelligence Exploitation: US Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke faces charges for allegedly profiting over $400,000 on Polymarket using classified intelligence on Venezuela.
- Creator Ecosystem Integrity: Kalshi recently suspended an editor linked to YouTube creator MrBeast for leveraging nonpublic video details to place targeted bets.
- Market Oversight Expansion: Polymarket flagged nearly 100 trading wallets for suspicious activity to mitigate informed trading risks.
Platforms are moving rapidly to close compliance loopholes. Kalshi has implemented employer disclosure rules and integrated institutional monitoring software like StarCompliance. Meanwhile, the CFTC continues to assert federal jurisdiction over event contracts despite pushback from several US states attempting to regulate event betting under state gambling frameworks.
