Kalshi is federally regulated, and 37 states plus DC are in court arguing that does not settle it

Kalshi is a CFTC-designated contract market. That is real, and it is the answer to "is this a scam". It is not the answer to "is this legal where I live", because those are two different questions and the second one is being fought right now.

In Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. KalshiEx LLC, before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as No. SJC-13906, Nevada, Ohio, 35 other states and the District of Columbia filed a joint amicus brief supporting Massachusetts. We downloaded that brief and read it on 20 August 2026. It runs 55 pages.

Thirty-seven states plus DC lining up on one side of a case is not a technical disagreement. Any page telling you Kalshi is simply "legal in all 50 states" is describing a world where that brief does not exist.

The two questions people keep conflating

Almost every competitor page on this topic mixes up three separate things. Separating them resolves most of the apparent contradictions:

A fourth question, promo eligibility, is not a legal question at all, and at least one widely-cited competitor page presents its promo-eligibility list as if it were a legality finding.

What the 37 states are actually arguing

The brief's argument is not "gambling is bad". It is a statutory interpretation argument, and it is a strong one.

Kalshi's position is that the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended by Congress in 2010 in response to the 2008 financial crisis, preempts state gambling law. The amici States' answer opens with a principle:

> When Congress makes major changes to the law, it does not keep them a secret.

They cite Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001) for that proposition, and their framing of the consequence is direct:

> according to Kalshi, Congress, as part of its response to the 2008 financial > crisis, quietly preempted the States from regulating sports betting. In fact, > as Kalshi would have it, this preemption was so subtle that nobody noticed > for years, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

That last clause points at Murphy v. NCAA, 584 U.S. 453, 486 (2018), the case that struck down the federal sports betting ban and returned the question to the states. The states' point is that the Supreme Court decided a major sports betting case in 2018 without anyone noticing that Congress had already federalised the subject in 2010.

They then run two clear-statement doctrines at it:

• The federalism canon. Congress must speak clearly to shift the

traditional balance of state and federal power. Sports betting has been state territory for a very long time.

• The major-questions doctrine. Congress must speak clearly before an

agency acquires vast new authority over a significant subject. On Kalshi's reading the CFTC would have gained authority over sports betting nationwide without the statute mentioning it.

The brief also notes, in its own words, that "The CFTC abruptly changes its stance on its own authority", which is a heading in its statement of facts.

Where individual states currently stand

The full signature block of that brief, all fifty-one jurisdictions with the thirteen that are not on it, is set out on the state legality hub. Texas, Florida, Georgia and Washington are among the thirteen.

Here is where we are deliberately more careful than the pages that outrank us today. We read the amicus brief. We did not retrieve the state court dockets. The following is from secondary reporting and is labelled as such, because the difference matters.

The Massachusetts AG's own press release would settle several of these dates. We could not read it: mass.gov returned HTTP 403 to us on 20 August 2026. We are not going to restate its contents from a summary and present that as a primary citation, which is the exact defect we criticise elsewhere.

The federal regulator is not sitting still either

Three CFTC actions on event contracts between 25 June and 12 August 2026, all read direct from cftc.gov:

• 9261-26, 25 June: proposed rule on data reporting for fully collateralised

event contracts, which have run under staff no-action letters since 2017.

• 9273-26, 24 July: advisory warning designated contract markets against

template-style self-certifications that prevent staff assessing "settlement methodology, data sources, and core-principles compliance".

• 9282-26, 12 August: advisory on incentive programme filings containing

"procedural or substantive deficiencies".

So the picture is not "federal regulator says yes, states say no". It is a federal regulator that is engaged, issuing advisories about the adequacy of the exchanges' own paperwork, while 37 states argue in court that the federal regime never covered this subject at all.

What this means for you, practically

• Federal registration is not a defence to state law, and that is the whole

question in SJC-13906. Anyone citing CFTC designation as though it ends the discussion has not read the other side.

• Sports event contracts are the contested category. The litigation we can

document is about sports. Political and economic contracts are a different posture, and we are not going to imply otherwise.

• Access is not permission. If your state has an injunction and the app

still loads, that tells you about geofencing, not about legality.

• Nothing here is legal advice. We are describing filings we have read.

What we could not verify

• The state court dockets. We have the SJC and Appeals Court numbers from

the brief itself. We did not pull the Suffolk Superior Court docket, the Nevada docket or the Ohio docket, so every date attached to those proceedings on this page is secondary and labelled.

• The Massachusetts AG press release. HTTP 403 on 20 Aug 2026.
• Which 35 states. The brief's caption says "35 Other States" alongside

Nevada and Ohio and lists additional counsel after the signature block. We have not transcribed all 37 names and will not list a state we have not read.

• The CLARITY Act's current status. congress.gov returned HTTP 403.
• Anything about your specific state. This page is the federal-versus-state

overview. Per-state pages need per-state statutes and dockets, and we would rather publish none than publish an unsourced list.

Questions people actually ask

Is Kalshi legal in the US? Kalshi is a CFTC-designated contract market, so it is federally registered. Whether its sports event contracts are lawful under state gambling law is contested: 37 states and the District of Columbia filed a joint amicus brief against Kalshi in Massachusetts v. KalshiEx LLC, SJC-13906.

How is Kalshi legal if sports betting is regulated by states? That is precisely the question in litigation. Kalshi argues the Commodity Exchange Act, amended in 2010, preempts state gambling law. The 37 amici states argue Congress would have said so clearly, citing Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, 531 U.S. 457 (2001).

Which states have taken action against Kalshi? Massachusetts brought the case now before its Supreme Judicial Court as SJC-13906. Nevada and Ohio co-authored the amicus brief supporting it, joined by 35 further states and DC. We have not retrieved the individual dockets, so we do not publish per-state dates.

Does the CFTC say Kalshi is legal? The CFTC designated Kalshi as a contract market, which is a federal registration, not a ruling on state law. In 2026 the CFTC issued two advisories, 9273-26 and 9282-26, telling exchanges their event-contract and incentive filings contained deficiencies.

Can I still use Kalshi in my state? Access is a geofencing question the platform answers, and it is not the same as legality. A state can have an injunction in force while an app still loads, and a platform can block a state that has taken no action at all.

When will this be settled? Unknown. The Massachusetts case is at the Supreme Judicial Court on review from Suffolk Superior Court. We are not going to guess at timing or outcome, and any page giving you a confident date for a resolution is guessing.