Former White House teleprompter operator forfeits profits, fined for Kalshi insider trading
A former White House teleprompter operator has been ordered to forfeit trading profits and pay a fine for insider trading on Kalshi, according to an Associated Press report. The individual allegedly used non-public information obtained through their government position to place bets on the CFTC-registered event-contract platform. The court's order requires disgorgement of profits plus a monetary penalty. The case marks an enforcement action against politically connected misuse of prediction market access.
The order gives the CFTC a concrete penalty to cite when demanding platform compliance on politically connected traders. Kalshi has already barred politicians and athletes from certain markets after the earlier Perez settlement. Rivals now face proof that platform rules alone do not satisfy regulators when staffers exploit speech-content access.
The compliance cost of monitoring government-linked traders just became measurable. Any platform without automated screening for federal employees risks repeating this enforcement pattern. Polymarket updated its rules on similar conduct after the earlier case, suggesting the industry is moving toward voluntary bans ahead of formal mandates. The next federal employee case would harden the pattern into a de facto standard.
This court order arrives one day after the Ninth Circuit rejected Kalshi's federal preemption defense against Nevada gaming oversight and on the same day the circuit ruled its sports contracts are gambling, not swaps — the third Kalshi legal defeat this week alongside the Connecticut suit, deepening a regulatory collapse that threatens its federal designation.