One of President Donald Trump’s technical assistants has been accused of betting on Kalshi about what the president will say, according to a new report from ABC News. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the report on Thursday and said the man, who has been operating Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, has been placed on unpaid administrative leave.
The accused, identified by ABC News as Gabriel Perez, allegedly placed bets on the content of more than a dozen speeches. The reporting cites unnamed investigators with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has been investigating insider trading on betting markets.
Perez reportedly made more than $100,000 betting on what Trump would say in his speeches. As someone in charge of the president’s teleprompter, Perez would obviously have access to an inside track on that info. Kalshi was the one to alert the CFTC, according to ABC News, and the White House says Perez is cooperating with the agency.
Karoline Leavitt was asked about the case on Thursday, and she initially said a member of the teleprompter team was on paid administrative leave. She then corrected herself, saying the person was on unpaid leave and that someone else would be working the teleprompter tonight when Trump delivers an address to the nation. That address is widely expected to focus on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. President Joe Biden won that election, and there’s been no evidence of widespread fraud that would’ve changed the outcome.
One reporter in the White House briefing room on Thursday noted that journalists can’t access Kalshi and Polymarket on the local wifi network. She asked the press secretary whether other staffers in the West Wing have access to it, something Leavitt said she didn’t know.
“Look, there are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House that explicitly state not to do this,” said Leavitt.
Trump’s erratic behavior during speeches apparently posed a problem for Perez, who would allegedly back out of certain bets mid-speech if the president skipped over a portion of a speech that was originally in the text, according to ABC News. When the CFTC apparently alerted federal prosecutors in Manhattan about the bets, they reportedly declined to open a criminal investigation, though it’s unclear why.
Perez was allegedly betting on what’s called the “mention markets,” where people can wager on whether a given word will be mentioned. The mention markets on Kalshi already have over $1.1 million of bets on what Trump will say Thursday night.
As of this writing, there’s a 98% chance he says “election,” a 55% chance Trump says the word “Iran” at least three times, a 52% chance he says “stock market,” and a 49% chance he says “alien.”
When it comes to the long-shot bets, there’s a 22% chance he says “transgender,” and a 4% chance he says “crypto” or “bitcoin.”
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