CFTC Invokes Emergency Powers to Keep Kalshi Trading Despite New York Suit

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has invoked its emergency authority to order Kalshi to carry on trading, acting on Tuesday after the exchange itself notified the agency of a market emergency.

The order directs KalshiEX to continue operating in line with the Commodity Exchange Act’s core principles, the federal standards that govern designated contract markets. Kalshi lodged its notification after New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the platform in state court on July 31, seeking a restraining order that would stop it offering event contracts anywhere in the country, plus more than $36 billion in damages.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig cast the state’s move as an attempt to kill the market before judges rule on it, saying New York wanted event contract derivatives to “waste away under its iron curtain of state gaming laws” ahead of any final ruling.

Selig argued that exchanges matching a bid in one state against an offer in another, then clearing the trade centrally, are interstate financial venues rather than gambling operations. “New York has no business regulating these interstate financial markets,” he said, adding that Congress had not intended derivatives exchanges to answer to a patchwork of state gaming laws.

Washington against the states

The agency says it has now sued nine states, and filed amicus briefs in the Sixth and Ninth Circuits and before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

That count has grown through the year, from Illinois, Arizona and Connecticut to Wisconsin and then Minnesota, which was sued within hours of its ban taking effect. President Donald Trump has backed the agency directly, describing state officials who oppose prediction markets as “SCUM.”

Kalshi has fared worse in court than the CFTC has, with a judge in the Southern District of New York denying it a preliminary injunction against the state gaming regulator on July 7 and refusing protection pending appeal on July 27. Michigan restrained its sports markets in June and Washington won a preliminary injunction in July, against wins in the Third Circuit over New Jersey and in Minnesota.

James’ petition treats Kalshi as an unlicensed gambling business across eight counts, seeking three times its gains and $100,000 for every sports wagering offer. It cites the exchange’s own figures, putting its valuation at $22 billion and annualised trading volume at $178 billion.