{"text":[[{"start":11.45,"text":"Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is under investigation by US regulators on suspicion of placing prediction market bets about the president’s statements in public speeches, people familiar with the matter have said."}],[{"start":25.2,"text":"Gabriel Perez, who has been Trump’s teleprompter operator since 2016, is under investigation for allegedly using insider knowledge of the president’s speeches to profit on “mention markets” on Kalshi."}],[{"start":38.75,"text":"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]”. "}],[{"start":50.9,"text":"Kalshi began investigating the account, including interviewing the trader, after suspicious trades were flagged by analysts and market makers in March. The company ultimately froze the account, keeping more than $90,000 of profits from the trades on the platform, according to a person familiar with the investigation."}],[{"start":69.2,"text":"The wagers were placed on Trump speeches, including his State of the Union in February, and included bets on commonplace words and phrases such as country names, economic terms and campaign slogans, one of the sources said."}],[{"start":83.8,"text":"Sources said Perez was co-operating with the investigation. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Perez was put on unpaid administrative leave while the investigation is ongoing. Leavitt said Trump believed the reported conduct was “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace”."}],[{"start":105.44999999999999,"text":"The CFTC said it could not confirm or deny any ongoing investigations. Perez did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. News of the probe was reported earlier by ABC News."}],[{"start":118.69999999999999,"text":"Perez was hired by chance in 2016 after the Trump campaign Googled “teleprompters” and found VIP Prompting, the company he was then working for in New York, according to a 2020 profile in Politico."}],[{"start":132.85,"text":"Kalshi bans users from placing bets based on non-public information they obtained through their jobs and in June said it would begin requiring users to disclose their workplace in order to trade in certain high-risk markets. "}],[{"start":145.79999999999998,"text":"Both Kalshi and Polymarket offer dozens of markets on what various politicians and corporate executives might say during public announcements."}],[{"start":154.24999999999997,"text":"As of Thursday, Kalshi was offering wagers on whether Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney would mention “AI” or “drone” during a scheduled speech on defence spending, and if White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt would say “fraud” or “illegal alien” in her next appearance in front of reporters."}],[{"start":171.49999999999997,"text":"Rivals have previously raised concerns that mention markets could be particularly vulnerable to insider trading. US broker Robinhood, which has a partnership with Kalshi, told the FT in April that it had excluded certain types of prediction market bets, including mention markets, from its push into the fast-growing sector over manipulation concerns. "}],[{"start":192.69999999999996,"text":"Bets on mentions account for a small proportion of prediction market trading volumes but have attracted scrutiny since Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong last year ended a quarterly earnings call with investors by listing a series of words that traders on Polymarket bet he might say."}],[{"start":209.54999999999995,"text":"“I was tracking the prediction market about what Coinbase will say on their next earnings call, and I just want to add here the words bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain, staking and Web3, to make sure we get those in before the end of the call,” Armstrong said last November. "}],[{"start":226.89999999999995,"text":"The incident comes amid rising concern that the rapid growth of prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket has opened a new avenue for lucrative insider trading and market manipulation."}],[{"start":237.89999999999995,"text":"In April, US prosecutors charged a soldier involved in planning the January raid to seize Venezuela’s strongman Nicolás Maduro with placing prediction-market trades on the mission that netted more than $400,000. The soldier, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, has pleaded not guilty. "}],[{"start":254.79999999999995,"text":"Additional reporting by Ella Lee in Washington"}],[{"start":264.34999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784253411_9562.mp3"}