The White House placed Donald Trump's longtime teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, on unpaid administrative leave Thursday after reports he won over $100,000 betting on the president's speeches via the prediction market Kalshi. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the situation "deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace," confirming another operator would handle Thursday night's address.

Sources say Perez, who earned $175,000 annually as a deputy assistant, used advance knowledge of speeches to profit on Kalshi's "mentions" market. Kalshi detected unusual patterns and alerted the CFTC, freezing the winnings. Robert De Nault, Kalshi's enforcement head, confirmed cooperation with regulators.

The case emerges as the DOJ pursues its first insider trading prosecutions tied to prediction markets, including a special forces soldier betting on Nicolás Maduro's capture and a Google employee wagering on search data. Kalshi and rival Polymarket recently added surveillance tools amid congressional scrutiny, though both have backing from the Trump-led CFTC. In May, Kalshi fined three candidates for betting on their own races, and authorities are investigating former Rep. George Santos for similar activity.