The judge said Kalshi’s event contracts are indistinguishable from sports betting, supporting the state’s position that the platform requires a gaming license. A Nevada judge has reportedly extended a ban preventing Kalshi from offering event-based contracts in the state, ruling that the products constitute unlicensed gambling under state law. Judge Jason Woodbury said at a hearing in Carson City on Friday that he will grant a preliminary injunction requested by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, barring the company from allowing residents to trade on outcomes such as sports, elections and entertainment events without a gaming license, according to Reuters. The decision extends a temporary restraining order issued on March 20, which will remain in effect through April 17 while the court finalizes longer-term restrictions. Read more
Stephanie Cutter will join the prediction markets company as a policy adviser, having previously worked in Democratic lawmakers’ campaigns. Predictions market platform Kalshi announced that a former staffer of US President Barack Obama had joined the company as a policy adviser. In a Thursday notice, Kalshi said Stephanie Cutter would join the prediction markets company from Precision Strategies, a communications firm she co-founded in 2013. Kalshi said the addition of Cutter came as the company planned to “deepen its relationships in DC and across the country.” According to Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour, Cutter’s experience allowed her to “get [the] message to the right people,” highlighting her background in government and politics. The predictions market already has staff with ties to the US government, including the appointment of the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., as a strategic adviser in January 2025, the week before his father took office. Read more
The Washington attorney general became the latest state authority to sue Kalshi, alleging on Friday that the prediction markets operator violated state regulations. Kalshi is facing another state-level lawsuit after the state of Washington on Friday filed allegations that the prediction market operator violated state gambling laws with its products. The Washington Attorney General’s complaint cites the Pacific Northwest state’s existing ban on online gambling and otherwise strict oversight of the gaming market, in claiming Kalshi violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act, Gambling Act, and Recovery of Money Lost at Gambling Act. "Kalshi’s website and app show consumers a range of events that they can bet on and the odds for those various events, which dictate how much the bettor will be paid out if the event occurs," an announcement from Attorney General Nick Brown said. "This is exactly how sportsbooks and other gambling operations function. Kalshi advertises that they allow consumers to 'bet on anythi...
Kalshi has already listed specific markets that ARK Invest is interested in, such as non-farm payroll markets and deficit-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio markets. Tech-focused asset manager ARK Invest said it will start using Kalshi’s prediction market data to improve how it makes its investment decisions, one of the latest cases demonstrating the broader value of prediction market data beyond trading. According to a statement from Kalshi, ARK will use prediction market data to gauge real-time expectations and guide its existing market-based research, in addition to analyzing performance indicators such as trading volume, regulatory approvals and technological milestones. ARK will also use the data for risk management and hedging strategies. “Bringing prediction markets into institutional workflows is a natural next step for innovation in financial research,” ARK Invest founder and CEO Cathie Wood said Thursday, while the company’s research director, Nick Grous, said prediction markets “offer some of th...
A Nevada state judge has sided with local authorities to ban Kalshi’s sports, election and entertainment event contracts in the state for 14 days. A Nevada judge has temporarily blocked Kalshi from operating in the state, finding that state authorities are reasonably likely to prevail in a legal fight over whether the company’s event contracts violate Nevada gambling laws. Carson City District Court Judge Jason Woodbury issued a temporary restraining order on Friday, siding with a Nevada Gaming Control Board motion to block Kalshi from operating in the state for 14 days. "Prediction markets, to the extent they facilitate unlicensed gambling, are illegal in Nevada, and we have a statutory duty to protect the public," Nevada Gaming Control Board Chair Mike Dreitzer said in a statement to Reuters. Read more
US gaming lawyer Daniel Wallach says a Nevada state court-issued restraining order against Kalshi appears imminent, preventing it from offering sports-related contracts. A federal appeals court has cleared Nevada state authorities to enforce a temporary restraining order against Kalshi, blocking its sports-event contracts. The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court on Thursday denied Kalshi’s emergency request to stay a lower court proceeding, meaning the case returns to federal court and allows Nevada regulators to take action. Gaming lawyer Daniel Wallach said a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Kalshi now appears imminent, and added that it wouldn’t be able to operate in Nevada for at least 14 days until a preliminary injunction hearing is held: Read more
The prediction markets co-founder said that the company would “abide by court decisions“ but signaled that the charges were based partly on political bias and media attention. Tarek Mansour, co-founder and CEO of prediction markets platform Kalshi, has pushed back against criminal charges filed by Arizona authorities this week, claiming that they were a "total overstep" and "not about gambling.” On Tuesday, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced charges against the companies behind Kalshi, alleging that the company operated an “illegal gambling business in Arizona without a license” and offered illegal election wagering. Mansour said in a Wednesday Bloomberg interview that Mayes was attempting to “subvert the judicial process” by filing charges without a court decision in Kalshi’s own lawsuit against Arizona authorities last week. “We see this as a total overstep and we look forward to fighting it in court,” said Mansour. Read more
A Kalshi spokesperson said that the criminal case was based on ”paper-thin arguments” and claimed the company was exclusively under federal jurisdiction. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that her office filed gambling and related criminal charges against the companies behind prediction markets platform Kalshi. In a Tuesday notice, Mayes said that the charges alleged that Kalshi operated an “illegal gambling business in Arizona without a license” and offered election wagering, in violation of state laws. Arizona authorities alleged that Kalshi’s prediction markets platform allowed state residents to bet on event contracts related to sports and state and federal elections. “Kalshi may brand itself as a ‘prediction market,’ but what it's actually doing is running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate Arizona law,” said Mayes. “No company gets to decide for itself which laws to follow.” Read more
The prediction markets platform argued for an injunction against Ohio authorities, claiming that federal commodities laws superseded state laws on sport event contracts. An Ohio federal court has denied a motion filed by prediction markets platform Kalshi for a preliminary injunction against Ohio state authorities over allegations that the company was operating in violation of gambling laws. In an order filed Monday, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Chief Judge Sarah Morrison denied Kalshi’s request for an injunction that would have blocked the Ohio Casino Control Commission and state attorney general from regulating contracts on the platform, specifically for sports betting. According to the judge, Kalshi had failed to show that the sports event contracts available on the platform were subject to the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Read more
The plaintiffs characterized the death carveout in a prediction market for the former Iranian Supreme Leader's ouster as "deceptive." A class action lawsuit has been filed against prediction market Kalshi, alleging that the death carveout in the “Ali Khamenei out as Supreme Leader” market was not properly disclosed to users and that the platform failed to pay out winning trades. The plaintiffs said that the death carveout policy was “not incorporated into the user-facing rules summary,” and was not displayed in a way that would notify a “reasonable consumer” of the policy or its effects. “Defendants, themselves, later acknowledged that their prior disclosures were ‘grammatically ambiguous,’” the lawsuit filing said. Read more
Lawmakers are pushing new regulation for prediction markets after suspiciously timed Polymarket bets on US and Israeli strikes on Iran raised insider-trading concerns. Prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket are reportedly exploring new fundraising rounds that could value the companies at around $20 billion each, roughly double their most recent valuations. Both platforms have held preliminary discussions with potential investors about raising fresh capital at the elevated valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The report noted that the negotiations remain at an early stage and may not result in deals or secure the targeted valuation. Kalshi currently operates in the United States and offers markets allowing users to wager on outcomes tied to sports, politics, the economy and cultural events. The company was last valued at about $11 billion in December when it raised $1 billion from investors including Paradigm and Sequoia Capital. Read more
The two separate rulings add new regulatory pressure as prediction markets also face scrutiny over information advantages and suspected insider activity tied to event-driven contracts. Two US federal court rulings have increased the risk that Nevada regulators may seek to halt prediction-market trading in the state after a judge sent a dispute involving Polymarket’s parent company Blockratize and Kalshi back to state court in two separate rulings. A federal judge rejected arguments that US regulation under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fully preempts state gaming laws for prediction markets, according to a Monday order. The judge found that the CEA’s savings clause does not completely displace state authority and that the companies had not shown a basis to block Nevada’s action at this stage. Read more