Nevada Hits Back at Prediction‑Market Giant Kalshi

The Nevada Gaming Control Board and the state attorney general filed a lawsuit against Kalshi in Carson City District Court after a federal appeals court denied the company’s request to halt state action. Nevada says Kalshi is operating an unlicensed sports‑betting service that has grown too fast to ignore. Kalshi’s expansion is striking: the company handled 27 times more business on Super Bowl Sunday this year than last year, while Nevada’s licensed gambling operators saw a decline in revenue. The state argues that Kalshi’s rapid growth threatens the integrity of regulated betting markets. Kalshi, which calls its offerings “event contracts, ” has turned to federal courts for relief. The company claims that only federal law governs prediction markets and that state enforcement raises the same issues already before the CFTC. Kalshi quickly asked a federal court to take over the new state case, hoping for a favorable ruling.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sided with another event‑contract firm in a similar dispute, and its chairman Michael Selig released a video defending the agency’s authority over these markets. He warned that challengers would face court action and emphasized the CFTC’s role in protecting these platforms. Prediction markets have long fascinated scholars for their potential to harness collective insight. They remained a niche until the 2024 U. S. presidential election, when platforms like Polymarket attracted millions in bets. Since then, sports and crypto betting have dominated Kalshi’s traffic; over 90 percent of funds on the site are tied to sports events. The success of Kalshi has prompted traditional sportsbooks such as FanDuel and DraftKings to launch their own prediction markets, drawn by lighter regulation and lower taxes. Meanwhile, regulators in Maryland and New Jersey are also clashing with the industry, setting the stage for a possible Supreme Court review of sports‑betting contracts on prediction platforms.