Overview
- The White House put Gabriel Perez on unpaid administrative leave after reports on Thursday that he had made roughly $90,000 to $100,000 by wagering on Kalshi’s “mentions” markets tied to President Trump’s speeches.
- Kalshi’s compliance team froze the profits, referred the account to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and provided evidence to investigators who opened a civil probe.
- CFTC investigators found wagers on more than a dozen speeches over about three months and say Perez sometimes adjusted or exited bets in real time when Trump skipped scripted passages.
- Perez sat for interviews with regulators, acknowledged some trades, and Manhattan federal prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges while the CFTC discusses a settlement that could require forfeiture of gains and a trading ban.
- The case highlights gaps in prediction-market safeguards, follows other insider-trading allegations involving these platforms, and could prompt tighter rules for platforms and clearer ethics enforcement for government staff.