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SALT LAKE CITY (Gambling911.com) - Federal regulators are now challenging Utah's efforts to restrict Kalshi, intensifying the dispute over whether states can regulate sports event contracts as gambling. The federal government argues that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over these exchanges.
The 33-page complaint was filed in federal court on Monday. It seeks to prevent Utah Attorney General Derek Brown from applying state gambling restrictions to exchanges registered with the CFTC. Both agencies claim “irreparable injury” to federal interests and require preliminary and permanent injunctive relief.
Utah filed a lawsuit against Kalshi and two Susquehanna trading firms on Oct. 20.
This marks the CFTC’s 10th legal challenge against a state seeking to restrict prediction markets and its first against a state led by a Republican governor.
The CFTC has had mixed success to date. The agency has secured preliminary injunctions in three of its lawsuits against states, while suffering a significant defeat in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, two of the three federal appeals courts that have ruled on the underlying sports prediction-market dispute have sided with state regulators.
Kalshi was handed a win by the Third Circuit court on April 6 in its legal battle versus New Jersey.
Utah has already obtained a favorable federal court ruling against Kalshi. On August 4, U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby held that the Commodity Exchange Act did not override Utah's gambling laws. The Tenth Circuit subsequently declined to grant Kalshi an injunction while its appeal proceeds.
The CFTC has now filed its own lawsuit in the same federal district, despite that earlier ruling.
The CFTC is also pursuing rulemaking intended to expressly classify sports, political and other event contracts as swaps, potentially strengthening its jurisdictional position.
Utah has some of the strictest gambling laws of any state in the nation. It does not even have a lottery.
Its gambling prohibition is written into the state constitution, not merely ordinary legislation.
Gambling Crime
Malik Beasley Pleading Guilty in Gambling Case
Malik Beasley will become the second NBA player to plead guilty to gambling charges related to performance manipulation in the last two years. Jontay Porter pleaded guilty and admitted to removing himself from two games to help bettors win prop bets on his statistics in 2024. Beasley is scheduled to enter a guilty plea in his case Dec. 9.
Malik Beasley will become the second NBA player to plead guilty to gambling charges related to performance manipulation in the last two years. Jontay Porter pleaded guilty and admitted to removing himself from two games to help bettors win prop bets on his statistics in 2024. Beasley is scheduled to enter a guilty plea in his case Dec. 9.
— David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) October 27, 2026
Politics
When Will My Israeli Election Bets Be Graded?
Israel is still counting votes, and there is no confirmed winner of the October 27, 2026 election. Most bets on who becomes the next prime minister have not yet been graded. As of Wednesday morning, October 28, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party leads the individual party count, but neither major political bloc has secured the 61 seats necessary to control Israel's 120-seat Knesset. Nobody is still given a 54% chance of being the next Israeli prime minister after Tuesday's election at Kalshi while was at 25% and Eizenkot 17%. The deadline for the official results is Wednesday, Nov. 4, however, the final vote could be concluded any day prior to this date.
Prediction Markets
Mystery Polymarket Trader Reportedly Makes $12 million
An analysis by the Financial Times reviewed 170 million bets, identifying an anonymous trader called swisstony who reportedly made $12 million in profit while generating $657 million in cumulative wagers. The investigation also found that 68% of users wagering more than $100 lost money. What's particularly remarkable is that the trader apparently didn't make the money through a handful of spectacular long-shot wagers. Instead, the account executed an extraordinary number of relatively small-margin sports trades. The trader's real identity remains unknown. The account appears to have exploited small pricing discrepancies across sports prediction markets. Rather than consistently predicting unlikely outcomes, the strategy involved identifying contracts priced below their estimated true value, repeatedly trading them and recycling capital. The Financial Times found that the trader placed bets at least once every hour for 26 consecutive days.
Prediction Markets
New York Gaming Commission Sues Kalshi Over Records
New York regulators want information on customer spending, under-21 trading, advertising, and Kalshi's corporate structure. The company disputes the state's authority and characterizes the subpoena as overreaching.
Prediction Markets
NBA's Kalshi and Polymarket Partnerships Spark Regulatory Debate
The NBA's newly announced partnerships include market restrictions, suspicious-trading information sharing, and controls on trading by league personnel. The agreements come as state regulators challenge prediction markets across the country. The prediction markets will have “information-sharing obligations relating to investigations and suspicious trading,” the NBA said. The NBA has had similar guardrails in place with its sportsbook partners for some time and has cited instances where that system has flagged irregularities in betting patterns.
Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip Gaming Win Ticks Up in September
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip saw a modest uptick in their gaming win last month, according to new figures released Wednesday. Nonrestricted gaming licensees on the Strip reported a win revenue of $693.47 million for September, per the Nevada Gaming Control Board. That's a 0.82% increase from September last year, when the Strip gaming win was $687.83 million. Statewide, the gaming win in September was $1.28 billion, largely unchanged from September 2025. Nevada ultimately collected $81.12 million in percentage fees based on the taxable revenues generated last month.
- Chris Costigan, Gambling911.com Publisher
