In June, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour told Front Office Sports he wasn’t worried about the prospect of a Supreme Court ruling that could upend the prediction-market industry’s ability to offer sports-event contracts nationwide.
“We feel very confident about the legal analysis,” Mansour said.
But on Friday, a three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit—a federal appeals court—brought a Supreme Court fight one step closer when it unanimously ruled that Nevada can enforce its gambling laws against Kalshi. Separately, the Ninth Circuit said the facts in suits involving Robinhood and Crypto.com “mirror” those in the Kalshi case.
“KalshiEX, LLC advertises itself as ‘the first app for legal sports betting in all 50 states,’” the opinion said. “Because we disagree with Kalshi’s overly broad reading of the [Commodity Exchange Act], and because CFTC regulations currently prohibit offering contracts related to gaming on prediction markets, we affirm the district court’s order dissolving the injunction as to sports event contracts.”
Kalshi launched sports-event contracts in January of last year. In 2025, the company’s trading volume was just under 87% sports, according to data from one of its primary venture capital backers, Paradigm. Mansour told FOS in June that the percentage of total trading volume from sports was declining, and while he’s right, sports still makes up a majority of trading activity on the platform—72% thus far in 2026.
