U.S. President Donald J. Trump attends the Great American State Fair kickoff celebration in Washington, DC, USA on June 24, 2026.
Kyle Mazza | Anadolu | Getty Images
A teleprompter operator is under investigation by federal regulators for allegedly placing bets on prediction market platform Karshi related to President Donald Trump’s comments.
The operator allegedly made more than $90,000 in profits from the trades, but most of the funds were frozen by Kalsi after the bets were flagged as suspicious, the company said.
“After investigating the exchange, our oversight team immediately flagged these trades and referred them to the (Commodity Futures Trading Commission),” Carsi Executive Director Robert Denor said in a statement to CNBC.
“We are assisting the regulator in this matter and have provided the evidence we have collected as we have in other inquiries,” Denor said.
CNBC has reached out to the White House and CFTC for comment.
Carsi said the company’s monitoring in March flagged the trading of contracts related to President Trump’s public statements that did not follow typical buying and selling patterns. Some trades were reported separately by market makers in so-called whistleblower channels.
According to the company, Kalsi’s surveillance analysts used data collected during customer onboarding and monitoring procedures to discover that account holders worked for the federal government and teleprompter operators.
Kalsi then froze the account and kept nearly all of the profits.
The investigation was first reported by ABC News.
— CNBC’s Megan Cassella contributed to this article
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalsi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and minority ownership.
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