Nevada AG office calls ruling ‘a major victory’ for state gaming authority
A federal appeals court panel on Friday refused to allow prediction market operator Kalshi to restart trading on sports and election events in Nevada while the company fights the state’s effort to shut that business down until Kalshi obtains a state gambling license.
The panel of judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in San Francisco, ruled that Kalshi did not make a persuasive argument that federal commodities trading law preempts Nevada’s state gambling law in determining who should regulate its sports events business. The panel said federal law likely does not preempt Nevada from applying its gambling regulations to Kalshi’s sports event contracts.
Nevada’s attorney general’s office called the ruling “a major victory for Nevada and our longstanding authority to regulate gaming in our state.” In a statement, the office said Kalshi “sought to sidestep” Nevada’s laws, and the 9th Circuit “made clear what we have maintained from the beginning: sports betting does not become something else simply because a company calls it an ‘event contract.’”
Nevada is home to the nation’s biggest commercial casino market.
Kalshi had argued that federal commodities trading law should take precedence over state-level gambling oversight of contracts tied to sporting outcomes. The panel ruled federal law likely does not preempt Nevada and refused to let Kalshi restart trading during the appeal.