Everyone's heard of the popular "prediction markets" by now. The ones where you can bet on, or, "predict", as they'd rather you call it, anything - sports, political events, even the weather!
But one of the crazier things is that you can bet on the things that politicians will actually say during their speeches. And that's a loophole Trump's longtime teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, has allegedly been using.
He has a long history with the President. He's been his teleprompter operator since 2016.
As reported by ABC News, the prediction market Kalshi was first alerted to a possible case of fraud when some pretty suspicious bets came to light.
Perez had used the "Mentions" section of their site, which allows users to bet on "whether specific words, phrases, or topics are uttered during a public speech."
Kalshi's lead lawyer, Bobby DeNault, explained in a statement that their surveillance team "promptly flagged and referred these trades to the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission,".
The commission is the regulator for apps like Kalshi and Polymarket, and help to ensure fraud doesn't happen. The marketplace added that they were "cooperating and assisting regulators" following the flagging.
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What Trump Speeches Did the Teleprompter Operator Bet On Exactly?
Well, it's a pretty long string of speeches.
He betted on the State of the Union address, as well as over a dozen other Trump speeches over a three-month period.
These included a "December primetime address, a January speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Trump's remarks in March during a Medal of Honor ceremony."
A White House spokesperson explained that "The White House has strict ethics guidelines that we expect all staffers and officials to follow. The staffer in question is fully cooperating with the CFTC."
However, despite this, Perez still holds his position as a teleprompter operator under Trump.
But, Trump himself has explained in the past that he doesn't always stick to his planned remarks during speeches. "I go off teleprompter about 80% of the time," he explained.
However, investigators reported Perez would back out of bets mid-speech if Trump deviated from his expected remarks.
