White House teleprompter accused of making $100k off Trump speech bets | BBC News — Transcript

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1. 0:00President Trump's longtime teleprompter
2. 0:02operator will not be behind the screen
3. 0:04at tonight's speech. The White House
4. 0:06says he's been put on unpaid
5. 0:08administrative leave after being accused
6. 0:10of placing bets on the president's
7. 0:13speeches. Federal regulators are
8. 0:15reportedly in settlement talks with
9. 0:18Gabriel Perez on potential insider
10. 0:21trading on prediction market platform
11. 0:24Kali. The trades reportedly spanned more
12. 0:27than a dozen high-profile addresses over
13. 0:29a threemonth period, allegedly making
14. 0:32him more than a hundred,000 US dollars.
15. 0:35They include the State of the Union
16. 0:36address and remarks the president made
17. 0:38at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
18. 0:42White House press secretary Caroline
19. 0:43Levit said President Trump called the
20. 0:45actions a disgrace and that he had put
21. 0:47Perez on leave himself. Press started
22. 0:50working for Donald Trump during the 2016
23. 0:53election campaign.
24. 0:56Well, let's talk about all of this. I'm
25. 0:58joined live now by Ben Horny, a reporter
26. 1:00at Front Office Sports. He covers deals
27. 1:02in capital markets, private equity, and
28. 1:05ownership. Ben, thanks for joining us
29. 1:07here on BBC News. Now, an investigation
30. 1:10is underway into the specifics of this
31. 1:12individual, but just explain to us in
32. 1:15theory how this sort of realtime betting
33. 1:18on speeches or on mentions might work.
34. 1:22>> Yeah, thank you so much for having me uh
35. 1:24Katrina. It's a pleasure to be here. So,
36. 1:26prediction markets uh have really
37. 1:28exploded over the last year and a half
38. 1:31or so. One of the things that you can do
39. 1:33on these platforms, it's called mention
40. 1:35markets. So that's what this person
41. 1:37Gabriel Perez is accused of doing. Um he
42. 1:40was he's it's alleged that he was
43. 1:43putting money on what terms President
44. 1:46Trump would say in his speech. So you
45. 1:47can bet on things like will Trump say
46. 1:49the word massive? Will Trump say the
47. 1:51word monkeying? Will Trump say the word
48. 1:52biochem? There's all kinds of potential
49. 1:54bets. And obviously you can see the
50. 1:57issue when there's someone who has
51. 1:59inside information and can and can trade
52. 2:01on it. Of course, anyone can bet on
53. 2:03those terms and those mentions as you
54. 2:05say, but is what's accused or alleged as
55. 2:08having happened here, I mean, a sort of
56. 2:10modern-day insider trading?
57. 2:13>> So, insider trading is one of two or
58. 2:16three of the primary kind of concerns on
59. 2:19prediction markets. The others are
60. 2:20sports. That's what I'm most focused on
61. 2:22at Front Office Sports. But, um, there
62. 2:26this issue of insider trading is
63. 2:27significant. Khi has been trying to put
64. 2:30in place protections against this and I
65. 2:32spoke to Khi um after the story broke
66. 2:34today and a representative for them uh
67. 2:37kind of gave me a little bit lay of the
68. 2:38land of what happened here. Basically
69. 2:40Koshi says that they flagged these
70. 2:42trades in March to the CFTC the
71. 2:45commodity futures trading commission
72. 2:47federal regulator that oversees
73. 2:48prediction markets. Um they discovered
74. 2:51it discovered it did their own
75. 2:52investigation of they froze that person
76. 2:55Gabriel Press's account. uh what you
77. 2:57like you said earlier uh he made over
78. 2:59$100,000 trading on these mentioned
79. 3:01markets. Tashi froze his account went
80. 3:03with about $90,000 in it. So they were
81. 3:06able to stop him from withdrawing most
82. 3:08of the money. Um and at this point I can
83. 3:11confirm I spoke to a source who
84. 3:13confirmed that the CFTC is investigating
85. 3:15uh and is in talks about a potential
86. 3:17settlement with the person. Uh,
87. 3:19obviously it will remain to be seen what
88. 3:22happens there, but I am told that
89. 3:23Gabriel Perez has been cooperating with
90. 3:25that probe.
91. 3:26>> And Ben, you mentioned sport there. Of
92. 3:29course, a big volume of this is sport.
93. 3:31We're all World Cup obsessed at the
94. 3:33moment. Talk to us about how this goes
95. 3:35on in sport.
96. 3:37>> Billions of dollars are being traded on
97. 3:39sport. And it's it's very similar. I
98. 3:42mean, it's very very very similar to
99. 3:43traditional sports betting. key
100. 3:46difference and why this has become such
101. 3:47a hot topic is that prediction markets
102. 3:49are regulated at the federal level. Uh
103. 3:51where traditional sports books like
104. 3:53FanDuel and DraftKings and whatnot are
105. 3:55regulated on a state-by-state basis. So
106. 3:57there's only 40 or so states that allow
107. 4:00you know online sports betting companies
108. 4:02like Ky and Poly Market came onto the
109. 4:04field and suddenly you can do what is
110. 4:06essentially betting on sports in all 50
111. 4:08states. Now the platforms argue that
112. 4:11there's a technical distinction on
113. 4:13sports books you're betting against the
114. 4:14house. So the draft kings and the
115. 4:16fandles of the world they make money if
116. 4:18you lose. Uh on koshi and poly market
117. 4:21and the like they are taking small
118. 4:23transaction fees for each trade. So
119. 4:25they're not necessarily making money
120. 4:26whether you win or lose. Uh and they
121. 4:29would claim that you're not betting
122. 4:30against the house. Although again
123. 4:32there's layers to this and we don't have
124. 4:34you know four hours to talk.
125. 4:35>> Indeed we don't. We have just about a
126. 4:37minute Ben. Just one last brief question
127. 4:39if you can. Uh what is the regulation
128. 4:42position around all of this?
129. 4:45>> So right now the platforms are arguing
130. 4:46and the CFTC as well is arguing that
131. 4:48this is falls under federal
132. 4:50jurisdiction. Uh this is a question that
133. 4:52will eventually be answered probably at
134. 4:55the Supreme Court level. Uh there's over
135. 4:5820 cases winding through the various
136. 5:00jurisdictions throughout the US court
137. 5:02system. A lot of them are over whether
138. 5:04it's sports event contracts. that's what
139. 5:06it's called when you do the sports
140. 5:08betting on these platforms are allowed
141. 5:10uh under federal law or whether they
142. 5:12need to be regulated under state law. Um
143. 5:14the the Supreme Court could potentially
144. 5:16take that up as soon as next year, but
145. 5:18that's also kind of speculation. People
146. 5:20don't really know, but yeah, the
147. 5:22expectation is the Supreme Court is
148. 5:24going to be needed to kind of offer some
149. 5:26clarification on whether this is allowed
150. 5:28and whatnot.
151. 5:29>> Okay, we'll keep an eye on that. Ben
152. 5:30Horny, reporter at Front Office Sports.