Utah has directly criminally charged Kalshi’s two founders, with one of the 14 counts being a felony.
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown filed the case in Salt Lake City against KalshiEX LLC and its CEO, Tarek Mansour, and COO, Luana Lopes Lara.
There are 14 counts in total: one second-degree felony count of “pattern of unlawful activity,” 12 third-degree felony counts of promoting online gambling, and one misdemeanor count of promoting gambling.
The prosecution’s evidence is that in September, an undercover investigator opened an account using a Utah address and debit card, then placed 12 sports bets.
Just last week, Utah filed a civil lawsuit, and the day before that, the CFTC countersued Utah, seeking to halt the state’s enforcement action.
I think this is no longer as simple as the state issuing a cease-and-desist order. Naming the founders in criminal charges effectively escalates the question of whether “prediction markets count as gambling” from a civil dispute to a criminal showdown.
The federal government says only Washington can regulate them; the state says federal registration does not override state law. The variable now is who follows suit.
For now, I’m treating this as a signal of regulatory risk for prediction markets, not as grounds to conclude that the entire industry will be shut down because one company has been sued.
If a federal court halts state enforcement, as it did in the Arizona case, then my assessment will no longer hold.
Do you think prediction markets will ultimately be treated as financial derivatives or as gambling?
$BTC $ETH $SOL
#预测市场 #Kalshi
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown filed the case in Salt Lake City against KalshiEX LLC and its CEO, Tarek Mansour, and COO, Luana Lopes Lara.
There are 14 counts in total: one second-degree felony count of “pattern of unlawful activity,” 12 third-degree felony counts of promoting online gambling, and one misdemeanor count of promoting gambling.
The prosecution’s evidence is that in September, an undercover investigator opened an account using a Utah address and debit card, then placed 12 sports bets.
Just last week, Utah filed a civil lawsuit, and the day before that, the CFTC countersued Utah, seeking to halt the state’s enforcement action.
I think this is no longer as simple as the state issuing a cease-and-desist order. Naming the founders in criminal charges effectively escalates the question of whether “prediction markets count as gambling” from a civil dispute to a criminal showdown.
The federal government says only Washington can regulate them; the state says federal registration does not override state law. The variable now is who follows suit.
For now, I’m treating this as a signal of regulatory risk for prediction markets, not as grounds to conclude that the entire industry will be shut down because one company has been sued.
If a federal court halts state enforcement, as it did in the Arizona case, then my assessment will no longer hold.
Do you think prediction markets will ultimately be treated as financial derivatives or as gambling?
$BTC $ETH $SOL
#预测市场 #Kalshi
