Ohio wrote the brief arguing Kalshi needs an Ohio licence
Ohio's attorney general Dave Yost is co-lead amicus in Massachusetts v. KalshiEx, SJC-13906. What Ohio sports gaming law requires.
Dave Yost, Ohio's attorney general, is co-lead amicus and counsel of record in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. KalshiEx LLC, SJC-13906, alongside Nevada. Ohio did not sign that brief. Ohio wrote it.
What follows is what Ohio's sports gaming law requires, taken from Ohio's own filing.
Three questions get answered as though they were one
Most state lists you will find are answering a different question from the one in their headline. The three that get run together:
- Is it lawful for me to trade here? State law.
- Will the platform let me in? Geofencing, which the platform sets and can change without notice.
- Am I eligible for the sign-up promo? A marketing offer.
The state legality hub sets out which attorneys general have taken a position on the record, across all fifty-one jurisdictions, and Kalshi legality by state indexes every state with a court record in one line each.
What follows, and where it comes from
Ohio signed the 37-state brief. The rest of this page is Ohio specific. Where a claim rests on reporting rather than on a document we read ourselves, it says so at that point rather than in a footnote.
Offering sports betting without a licence is prohibited
Ohio, like Nevada, prohibits companies from offering sports betting without a licence. The brief puts the two states side by side deliberately: the licensing requirement is not a Nevada peculiarity, and the argument is about who gets to impose the conditions.
The voluntary exclusion list puts a duty on the operator
Ohio runs an exclusion programme through which people worried about their sports gambling habits can place themselves on a voluntary exclusion list. The duty then falls on the operator: sports gaming proprietors must, in the statute's words, “employ commercially reasonable methods to prevent any person who is participating in the sports gaming voluntary exclusion program from engaging in sports gaming”. Self-exclusion only works if every venue is bound by it.
Ohio has already had a prop-bet integrity problem
The brief points at a 2025 episode in which a handful of pitches across 45 baseball games sparked controversy over prop bets in Ohio, and the state's governor called for an end to player prop betting while an investigation ran. It is offered as evidence that the integrity rules are load-bearing rather than theoretical.
The provisions in play
| Provision | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Ohio Rev. Code ch. 3775 | sports gaming |
| Ohio Rev. Code ch. 3109 | cited in the brief |
Section numbers are given so you can look them up. Where we have not read the provision directly, the sources list says so.
What we could not verify
- The Ohio docket. Kalshi's motion for a preliminary injunction is reported denied in Ohio. Secondary reporting. We did not retrieve the docket.
- The $5m figure. Ohio is reported to have fined Kalshi $5m. We have not seen the order, so it is not stated as fact here.
- Whether Kalshi is geofenced in Ohio today.
- The current text of the statutes cited. Chapter numbers come from the brief, not from a direct reading of the Ohio Revised Code.
Questions people actually type
Is Kalshi legal in Ohio? There is no yes or no here that would be honest. This page sets out what Ohio has actually done, what its law says, and what a court has or has not decided, so you can see the state of play rather than a verdict nobody has issued.
Has Ohio taken action against Kalshi? The section above answers this for Ohio specifically. Across the country, reporting we read describes fifteen states having sued, investigated or sent cease-and-desist orders over gambling licensure. The states differ, and a page that gives one national answer is flattening that.
Does the CFTC designation settle it? No. Kalshi is a CFTC-designated contract market and nobody disputes that. Whether the designation displaces state gaming law is the contested question, argued through 7 U.S.C. section 2(e) and the clear-statement rule in Whitman, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001). Two federal district courts have answered it differently.
Can I be prosecuted for trading in Ohio? We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. The filings we read are about whether the exchange may offer the contracts, not about individual traders. If that is your real question it is one for someone licensed to answer it in Ohio.
Is the app blocked in Ohio? We have not tested it. Geofencing is a platform setting that changes without notice and is a different question from legality.
How many states are arguing this? Thirty-seven states plus the District of Columbia signed the brief, which is 38 jurisdictions, and Massachusetts is separately the party bringing the case. The full signature block is on the state legality hub.
What this page is not
It is not legal advice and we are not lawyers. It is a reading of public documents and reporting, all linked, so you can check it yourself.
Sources
Everything on this page is attributed to the document it came from, and where we read reporting about a court order rather than the order itself, the page says so in the body as well as here. Read direct on 20 Aug 2026 unless stated otherwise.
- https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/amicus-curiae/massachusetts-v-kalshiex-llc-amicus-brief-2026.pdf Brief of Amici Curiae of Nevada, Ohio, 35 Other States, and the District of Columbia Supporting Appellee, Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. KalshiEx LLC, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court No. SJC-13906, Appeals Court No. 2026-P-244. 55 pages, filed 24 April 2026. Downloaded and read direct 20 Aug 2026.
- 7 U.S.C. section 2(e) : the Commodity Exchange Act provision the preemption argument turns on, cited in the brief.
- Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001) : cited in the brief for the clear-statement rule.