{"id":35666,"date":"2026-04-13T18:17:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/?p=35666"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:17:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:17:35","slug":"federal-judge-tells-arizona-to-leave-predictive-market-operators-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/federal-judge-tells-arizona-to-leave-predictive-market-operators-alone\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Judge Tells Arizona to Leave Predictive Market Operators Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A federal judge has temporarily sided with Kalshi against Arizona on Friday, who filed criminal charges against the predictive market operator for violating state gambling laws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kalshi\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi means an arraignment hearing that was scheduled for today was postponed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the AP<\/a>, “the judge\u2019s order said the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission had sufficiently shown that ‘event contracts’ fall within the Commodity Exchange Act\u2019s definition of \u201cswaps,\u201d and that it had demonstrated a reasonable chance of success in showing that the act preempts Arizona law.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although this is a temporary order, it seems like a huge win for Kalshi, since the judge wrote in his order: \u201cThe Act grants the CFTC \u2018exclusive jurisdiction\u2019 over the regulation of \u2018swaps.\u2019” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn’t seem to matter to the CFTC that some of these “swaps” just are, in reality, wagers on everything from baseball games to elections. In fact, the CFTC has repeatedly acted on behalf on Kalshi and other predictive market operators by suing states who are trying to shit down the sites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last Wednesday, the CFTC filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona asking the court for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order that would halt Arizona\u2019s efforts to apply state criminal and gambling laws against CFTC-regulated prediction markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That came a week after the CFTC filed a motion with the Department of Justice challenging Arizona’s criminal filings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cArizona\u2019s decision to weaponize preempted state criminal law against companies that comply with a comprehensive federal regime sets a dangerous precedent,\u201d Chairman Michael S. Selig wrote in a press release<\/a>. \u201cThe CFTC is committed to vigorously defending its exclusive authority over prediction markets. We are asking the court to send a clear message that intimidation is not an acceptable tactic to circumvent federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CFTC has also filed complaints against Connecticut and Illinois in order to seek “declaratory judgments that federal law grants the CFTC exclusive authority to regulate event contracts and requesting permanent injunctions preventing the states from enforcing preempted state laws against its registrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CFTC has clear and longstanding exclusive jurisdiction to regulate event contracts under the Commodity Exchange Act, which preempts state laws purporting to regulate prediction markets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge has temporarily sided with Kalshi against Arizona on Friday, who filed criminal charges against the predictive market operator for violating state gambling laws. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi means an arraignment hearing that was scheduled for today was postponed. According to the AP, “the judge\u2019s order said the federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":35630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[497,527,529,7421,507,509],"tags":[7423],"vertical":[],"class_list":["post-35666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-poker-business","category-buzz","category-poker-buzz","category-legal","category-poker-scandals","tag-kalshi"],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":35666},"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/kalshi-600x400.webp","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/kalshi-600x600.webp","author_info":{"display_name":"Bob Pajich","author_link":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/author\/bob-pajich\/"},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35666"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.casino.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=35666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}