Trump aide faces probe over Kalshi mention-market bets

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Trump aide Kalshi probe

Highlights

U.S. regulators are investigating whether Trump's teleprompter operator Perez used non-public information to make over $90,000 trading on Kalshi's mention markets.
Kalshi flagged and froze Perez's suspicious trades in March, referring the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for further scrutiny.
Intensified oversight follows similar high-profile incidents, with prediction-market platforms facing rising regulatory attention and introducing stricter rules to address insider trading risks.

Investigation centers on speech-linked trades

As first reported by Financial Times, citing ABC News, U.S. regulators are examining whether Perez used non-public knowledge of presidential speeches to profit from so-called mention markets on Kalshi.

Perez has served as Trump's teleprompter operator since 2016. People familiar with the matter said Kalshi's surveillance team flagged suspicious trading after analysts and market makers raised concerns in March, and the company then investigated and froze the account, holding more than $90,000 in profits on the platform.

Robert DeNault, Kalshi's legal counsel, said on X that the company's surveillance team "promptly flagged, investigated and referred these trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission." The CFTC said it could neither confirm nor deny ongoing investigations, while Perez does not immediately respond to a request for comment and sources say he is cooperating.

Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, says the White House has strict ethics guidelines that staff and officials are expected to follow. Kalshi bars users from trading on non-public information obtained through their jobs and says in June that it will require users to disclose their workplace to trade in certain high-risk markets.

Prediction market oversight intensifies

Kalshi and rival Polymarket both offer contracts linked to what politicians and corporate executives might say during public events, though mention markets represent only a small share of overall trading volumes. Even so, the products are drawing increasing attention over the risk that insiders or people with privileged access could influence or exploit outcomes.

Kalshi is still listing wagers on whether public figures will use terms such as "AI," "drone," "fraud" or "illegal alien" in scheduled appearances. Robinhood, which partners with Kalshi, tells the Financial Times in April that it leaves some prediction-market categories, including mention markets, out of its expansion into the sector because of manipulation concerns.

Scrutiny of the industry is also rising beyond this case. Last year, Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong drew attention after ending an earnings call by listing words traders on Polymarket had bet he might say, and in April U.S. prosecutors charged soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke with placing prediction-market trades tied to the January raid plan targeting Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro, a case in which prosecutors say the trades generated more than $400,000.

Our earlier report on the CFTC’s inquiry into alleged Kalshi trades tied to President Trump’s statements explained how a teleprompter operator’s suspected bets brought renewed attention to the risk of using non-public access to political remarks in event-based contracts. We also noted that the case is sharpening the focus on prediction-market surveillance and broader regulatory oversight as platforms expand products linked to high-sensitivity public events.

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