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A federal insider-trading case involving Kalshi has ended with a settlement against White House aide Gabriel Perez, President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator. According to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Perez will pay a $65,000 fine and give up more than $107,000 in profits tied to prediction-market trades based on nonpublic information about Trump’s speeches. Kalshi also imposed a three-year ban.
The case stands out for anyone following prediction markets because it shows regulators and operators are willing to pursue insider-trading allegations tied to event contracts, not just traditional financial markets.
CFTC says trades used confidential speech information
The CFTC said Perez owed duties of trust and confidentiality to the U.S. government and breached them by trading on information he learned while reviewing presidential speeches. The agency said he used “material and nonpublic information” to trade for his own financial benefit on markets about what Trump would say.
Those trades involved the State of the Union address, the National Prayer Breakfast, a Medal of Honor ceremony, rallies, and other speeches, according to the agency. The CFTC said Perez placed 49 trades, won 39 of them, and earned more than $107,000.
In a voluntary interview cited by regulators, Perez admitted he “made his trading decisions based on the confidential information he had learned from his review of the speeches.”
Kalshi reported the activity and barred Perez for three years
Kalshi head of enforcement Bobby DeNault said the company detected the prohibited trading and reported it to the CFTC. After the settlement was announced, DeNault said, “It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences.”
The CFTC said Perez received a substantial discount on his fine because of what it described as exemplary cooperation. Former CFTC commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero criticized the relatively small penalty, saying cooperation should matter but adding that the case involved “insider trading at the highest level of government – the White House.”
For prediction-market users, the clearest takeaway is that enforcement risk is real when trades are based on nonpublic information. The settlement also puts attention back on how platforms such as Kalshi monitor event-contract trading and work with federal regulators when they detect potential misconduct.
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Source: As reported by gulfcoastnewsnow.com.
