U.S. regulators have imposed a $172,539 penalty on a former White House teleprompter operator who used advance access to presidential speeches to profit from prediction-market contracts, marking one of the clearest tests yet of insider trading rules in the rapidly expanding event-contracts market.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said Gabriel Perez misappropriated material, nonpublic information obtained through his government job to trade so-called 'presidential mention' contracts on the prediction-market platform Kalshi between December 2025 and February 2026. According to the CFTC, Perez had access to presidential speeches before they were delivered and used that information to trade contracts tied to whether specific words or phrases would be mentioned by the president.

The trades generated $107,539.02 in unlawful profits. Under a settlement with the CFTC, Perez must return those profits, pay a $65,000 civil monetary penalty, and accept a three-year ban from trading. He also agreed to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.

The CFTC said the $65,000 penalty represented a substantial discount under the agency's new cooperation advisory because of Perez's 'exemplary cooperation' with the investigation.

The case follows earlier enforcement actions involving the Kalshi platform. The Santos case was one of five new enforcement cases, with the rest receiving temporary bans after cooperating with investigations.

"Mr. Santos faces additional financial penalties and will be banned permanently from trading on Kalshi given his lack of cooperation," a Kalshi… — BitKE (@BitcoinKE) September 1, 2026 (https://x.com/BitcoinKE/status/2094671191394922874?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

The case is significant because it extends the familiar principles of insider trading enforcement into prediction markets, where traders bet on real-world events rather than traditional securities. It provides a concrete regulatory precedent: privileged government information can trigger enforcement when it is used to trade event contracts for personal gain. The legal theory at work is misappropriation — the same framework the CFTC and SEC have long applied when someone trades on confidential information obtained in breach of a duty to its source, here the federal government rather than a corporate employer.

The CFTC described the contracts as swaps and said Perez breached a duty of trust and confidence by using information obtained through his federal employment. The agency also credited Kalshi with assisting in the investigation. That classification matters: because the contracts are regulated as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, the CFTC — rather than the SEC — holds jurisdiction over them, which is how a speech-related wager falls under federal derivatives enforcement in the first place.

The enforcement action underscores a broader challenge for prediction-market platforms as they expand into areas traditionally occupied by financial exchanges, bookmakers, and polling organizations. Kalshi's profile in particular rose after its U.S. election contracts survived a court challenge in 2024, and event-contract volumes across the sector have grown substantially since. The more markets are tied to sensitive political, economic, and corporate information, the greater the importance of surveillance and controls against traders with an informational advantage.

The case also establishes that the novelty of an event contract does not necessarily shield traders from traditional market-integrity rules. The CFTC's action signals that regulators are prepared to treat misuse of confidential information in these markets as a market-abuse issue, potentially setting a precedent for how insider trading is policed as prediction markets become a more established part of financial markets.

The key angle is precedent rather than simply the penalty: the CFTC is effectively demonstrating that insider trading principles can apply to prediction-market contracts, even when the underlying "asset" is something as unusual as whether a president says a particular word.