A federal appeals court says Kalshi can't dodge state gambling laws just by calling its sports bets "swaps."
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled unanimously today that Nevada can enforce its gambling laws against Kalshi's sports-event contracts, along with similar products from Crypto.com and Robinhood. The panel, made up of three Trump appointed judges, rejected Kalshi's core legal argument: that the federal Commodity Exchange Act preempts state gaming law nationwide. The ruling affirms a lower court order that already let Nevada regulators go after Kalshi's sports contracts. The Nevada Gaming Control Board said the court "emphatically reject[ed]" the preemption theory, and Governor Joe Lombardo called the contracts gambling that must follow the state's licensing rules.
The timing matters more than the legal reasoning. The Trump administration has been actively working to shield prediction markets from state oversight, and this panel was stacked with judges appointed by that same administration. They ruled against Kalshi anyway. That's a signal to every other state weighing enforcement action that the "it's a federally regulated swap" defense won't survive judicial scrutiny just because it has political backing in Washington.
Renaming a bet doesn't change what it is. Kalshi built a business on the idea that federal commodity law could paper over state gambling bans; Nevada just showed a court doesn't have to buy that framing, even from friendly judges.