Prediction marketplace provider Kalshi could be hit with a temporary restraining order from the state of Nevada after a federal appeals court declined to block such a proposal on Thursday.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board served Kalshi with a cease-and-desist order in March 2025, ordering it to stop offering sports-related prediction market contracts. However, Kalshi said a later filing for a temporary restraining order from Nevada “sought to prohibit Kalshi from offering all of his event contracts.” Kalshi tried to move the case to federal court, but the case would have to go back to a state court if the appeals court did not grant it an administrative stay.
On Thursday, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel denied Kalshi’s motion for an administrative stay in a federal case, clearing the way for the case to be thrown back to a state court.
In its appeal filed on March 13, Kalshi warned that it “faces imminent harm” if the appeals court does not grant its request, as “state court proceedings would undermine Kalshi’s appellate rights in this appeal” and a related case.
The platform said it could find itself addressing the same issue — the question of whether state regulators in Nevada have any jurisdiction — in four different venues, including a Nevada state court, Nevada federal court and two different appellate courts.
“To allow that to happen would create an unsustainable risk of exposing Kalshi to conflicting federal and state court decisions,” the suit states. “For example, the state court could rule against Kalshi and find that the CEA does not preempt state gaming laws, while this court in Assad [another case] comes to the exact opposite conclusion.”
Dan Wallach, a gambling attorney, said in a post on X that a temporary restraining order would push Kalshi out of Nevada entirely for at least two weeks, pending a hearing on a preliminary injunction.
The temporary restraining order could come in the next day or so, he said.
Kalshi and other prediction market providers are facing pushback in over a dozen state actions, with state-level regulators claiming they have jurisdiction over at least sports-related betting products. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has argued that it has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction market providers, and filed an amicus brief in one of the federal cases to defend that position.
The CFTC even signed a memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball, announced at the same time as MLB’s announcement that it had partnered with Polymarket.
