Federal regulators are in settlement talks with President Trump's longtime teleprompter operator, who is alleged to have made nearly $100,000 on the prediction market site Kalshi, according to two people with knowledge of the probe who were not authorized to speak publicly.He is suspected of profiting off of his access to the president's prepared remarks on a type of betting on Kalshi known as "mention markets," where people wager on words and expressions the president will or will not say during public events.Prediction markets allow people to bet on elections, global policy or even what color tie the president will wear.The markets have exploded in growth in recent months, leading to several instances of high-profile insider trading.
But this marks the first time someone inside the White House has been investigated for allegedly abusing that access for prediction market profits.Gabriel Perez, who has worked for the president since 2016, is now negotiating with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over his alleged lucrative betting activity on the "mention markets."Ahead of Trump's address to the nation later on Thursday, Kalshi traders have already wagered more than $800,000 on whether the president will say words like "Hormuz," or "rigged election," or "fake news."In the case of Perez, Kalshi's surveillance systems detected unusual betting on "mention" markets involving the president that did not follow typical behavior, and when the company examined the accounts behind it, investigators saw that he was a federal employee, according to a source with direct knowledge of the inquiry."Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC after an exchange investigation.We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral," said Robert DeNault, who heads enforcement at Kalshi.Kalshi froze about $90,000 of Perez's profits and he has been banned from betting on the site, one of the so...