Gabriel Perez, the White House staffer accused of using advance knowledge of President Trump's speeches to win more than $100,000 on prediction market Kalshi, no longer works for the federal government, and the administration is not shedding tears over his departure.

Perez, who had operated Trump's teleprompter since the 2016 campaign, left his federal position less than two weeks after ABC News reported he was negotiating a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over the trades. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle confirmed the departure but declined to say whether Perez was fired or resigned. Perez could not be reached for comment.

The exit caps a saga that began when Kalshi's own surveillance team flagged suspicious activity on Perez's account and referred the trades to the CFTC. Perez allegedly placed wagers on more than a dozen presidential appearances over a three-month stretch, betting on specific words and phrases he knew Trump would deliver because he had the prepared text in front of him.

Over $100,000 in winnings across a dozen-plus speeches

The speeches Perez allegedly wagered on included some of the most high-profile moments of Trump's term: the February State of the Union address, a January speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, and a March Medal of Honor ceremony. Those are just the three named events. The full tally reportedly covered more than a dozen presidential appearances.

One detail stands out. When Trump went off-script and skipped sections of his prepared remarks, something the president does routinely, Perez allegedly backed out of wagers mid-speech after the words he had bet on never came. That pattern of placing and then canceling bets in real time is what drew Kalshi's internal monitors to his account.

Kalshi froze Perez's account before he could withdraw most of his profits, leaving over $90,000 on the platform. The company's lead attorney said Kalshi's surveillance team "promptly referred the trades to the CFTC."

Kalshi's trading rules explicitly bar users from participating in a contract if they are an employee of the source agency, hold material nonpublic information about the contract, or have the ability to influence its outcome. Perez, who loaded the president's remarks onto the teleprompter before each speech, checked every one of those boxes.

Trump personally ordered the leave, and called it 'a disgrace'

The White House moved quickly once the allegations surfaced. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that Perez would be placed on unpaid administrative leave at Trump's direction. She did not hold back about the president's view of the situation.

Leavitt, as AP News reported, called the allegations "deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace", a sentiment she attributed directly to Trump.

"I think this played out exactly how it should... he will now no longer be working at the White House, so I think that answers all the questions on this matter."

That was Leavitt's assessment of the outcome, framing Perez's departure as the system working the way it should. A different teleprompter operator was assigned to handle Trump's speeches going forward.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle reinforced the message, stating that "the White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow." He offered no further detail on the terms of Perez's exit.

The administration's swift response stands in contrast to how Washington typically handles ethics scandals. Too often, officials circle the wagons, deny wrongdoing, and drag the process out until the public loses interest. In this case, Trump ordered the leave himself, the press secretary called the conduct a disgrace on the record, and the staffer was gone within weeks. That is how accountability is supposed to work, regardless of which party occupies the White House. It is a standard that other officials mired in scandal have been far slower to meet.

CFTC investigation continues, but no criminal charges

Reuters reported that the CFTC is investigating Perez for potential insider trading. A CFTC spokesperson, however, said the agency could not comment on whether an investigation exists, standard language for an open regulatory matter. Perez acknowledged some of the trades in an interview with regulators and was negotiating a settlement with the commission at the time of his departure.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan were notified of the matter but declined to open a criminal investigation. That decision leaves the CFTC's civil enforcement track as the primary avenue for consequences beyond Perez's loss of his government job.

The distinction matters. Prediction markets like Kalshi operate in a regulatory gray zone that has expanded rapidly in recent years. The CFTC approved Kalshi to offer event contracts in 2023 after a lengthy legal fight, and the platform now hosts markets on everything from election outcomes to economic data releases. Kalshi maintains an 899-page reference document outlining its source-agency trading prohibitions, rules designed to prevent exactly what Perez allegedly did.

Whether those rules, and the broader regulatory framework around prediction markets, are strong enough to deter insiders is an open question. Perez's case is the most prominent test yet. That a low-level White House staffer could allegedly exploit his access to earn six figures on a legal betting platform, and that no criminal charges followed, suggests the guardrails may need reinforcing. As ongoing battles over financial regulation in Congress make clear, the rules governing new market instruments are still catching up to the technology.

Perez bet on words he already knew, and bailed when Trump improvised

The mechanics of the scheme, as described in multiple reports, are remarkably simple. Kalshi offers contracts that let users wager on whether a specific word or phrase will appear in a presidential speech. Perez had the prepared text. He placed his bets. When the president stuck to the script, Perez won. When Trump ad-libbed or skipped a section, Perez pulled his wagers before they settled.

The New York Post reported that Perez made over $90,000 in profits through this method. Leavitt put it bluntly: "This individual unfortunately violated the plan, and therefore he's paying the consequences."

Perez's long tenure with Trump, dating back to the 2016 campaign, made his position uniquely suited for this kind of exploitation. Few people in government have earlier or more reliable access to the exact text a president will deliver. That access is a trust, and Perez allegedly treated it as a trading edge.

The fact that Kalshi's own systems caught the activity is a point in the platform's favor. The company flagged the trades, froze the account, and reported the matter to regulators. But the episode raises harder questions about whether prediction markets on government speech, a category that inherently creates insiders, should exist at all. When political maneuvering already involves enormous sums, adding a legal betting layer on top of official government actions invites exactly this kind of abuse.

Unanswered questions linger after Perez's exit

Several loose ends remain. The White House has not said whether Perez resigned or was fired, a distinction that could affect his eligibility for future federal employment and any severance or benefits. The terms of his settlement negotiations with the CFTC have not been disclosed, and it is unclear whether a deal has been reached.

Nor has anyone explained how Perez's trading went undetected for a three-month stretch covering more than a dozen speeches before Kalshi's systems caught on. The pattern of misconduct going unchecked for extended periods is a recurring problem across government, one that erodes public trust whether the offender sits in the West Wing or on Capitol Hill.

And the biggest question of all: if federal prosecutors in Manhattan reviewed the evidence and declined to bring criminal charges, what does that say about the legal framework governing insider activity on prediction markets? The CFTC can impose fines and bans. It cannot send anyone to prison. For a scheme that allegedly netted six figures from exploiting a position of trust inside the White House, a civil settlement may strike many taxpayers as insufficient.

The White House handled this one the right way, fast, public, and without excuses. Now the regulators need to finish the job.