Kalshi, state cases from the past week

In the Nevada Supreme Court, Kalshi lost an effort a few days ago to halt a requirement that it block its customers in the state from much of the platform’s trading activity. The denial signed by three state justices on Wednesday said they were “not persuaded” by the business’ emergency motion, and Kalshi may also face legal trouble for failing to geofence its business by a court-imposed deadline.

In Ohio, Kalshi sued the gaming regulator on Monday — following earlier, parallel court arguments from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — seeking to halt Ohio’s penalty against the company on accusations it’s run an unlicensed sports-betting operation.

The next day, a local court in Michigan granted that state’s gaming regulators a temporary, two-week restraining order against Kalshi to stop it from offering, advertising or facilitating sports betting there.

“Kalshi is targeting Michigan’s most vulnerable residents with sports betting dressed up as investing — and without intervention, the harm will keep getting worse,” said Michigan Gaming Control Board Executive Director Henry Williams in a Tuesday statement.

On the positive side for prediction platforms: The CFTC and its pro-innovation chairman, Mike Selig, are aggressively trying to make the case that Kalshi and the others belong under the sole jurisdiction of the agency as the U.S. derivatives regulator, arguing in its own lawsuits against several states that the contracts sold in the prediction markets are effectively the same as those an agricultural business might buy to hedge against future crop prices changes.