A former White House teleprompter operator was ordered to pay $172,000 for using nonpublic information from presidential speeches to place bets on prediction markets.

Gabriel Perez, a long-time teleprompter operator for President Donald Trump, has been ordered to pay $172,000 in penalties and disgorged profits. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced Friday that Perez used material, nonpublic information from upcoming speeches to place trades on prediction markets. Perez, who served as a technical assistant to the president since 2016, was found to have traded on contracts related to specific words or phrases the president might use.

Trading Activity and Penalties

The CFTC ordered Perez to pay $107,539.02 in profits gained from the trades, along with a $65,000 civil penalty. In addition to the financial sanctions, he is banned from trading on prediction markets for three years. The trades were conducted through the platform Kalshi, which the CFTC noted assisted in the investigation.

Investigation and Employment Status

Kalshi’s lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, stated that the exchange's surveillance caught the staffer engaging in prohibited activity. While the CFTC cited Perez's 'exemplary cooperation' during the investigation, the White House previously addressed the matter in July. Then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the actions as a breach of ethics and a 'disgrace,' confirming at the time that Perez had been placed on leave and would no longer be employed by the White House.