United States President Donald J. Trump is seen at the Great American State Fair Kickoff Celebration in Washington, DC, United States on June 24, 2026.
Kyle Mazza | Anadolu | Getty Images
A teleprompter operator is under investigation by federal regulators in connection with bets they allegedly made on the prediction market platform Kalshi related to statements made by President Donald Trump.
The operator allegedly made more than $90,000 in profits on the trades, but most of that money was frozen by Kalshi after the bets were flagged as suspicious, according to the company.
“Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] after an exchange investigation,” said Robert DeNault, Kalshi’s head of enforcement, in a statement to CNBC.
“We have been assisting regulators on this matter and provided evidence we collected, as we do in any referral,” DeNault said.
CNBC has requested comment from the White House and the CFTC.
According to Kalshi, the company’s surveillance in March flagged trades on contracts related to public statements by Trump that did not follow typical patterns of buying and selling. Some of the trades were separately flagged by market makers in so-called whistleblower channels.
Kalshi’s surveillance analysts used data collected during the onboarding of customers and monitoring procedures to discover that the account holder worked for the federal government and a teleprompter operator, according to the company.
Kalshi then froze the account, retaining almost all of the profits.
The investigation was first reported by ABC News.
— CNBC’s Megan Cassella contributed to this article
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.
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