The U.S. District Court judge hearing a New York prediction market company’s bid to offer contracts on sports outcomes, similar to taking sports bets, has taken under advisement a request to dissolve a preliminary injunction against the state.
District Judge Andrew Gordon on Friday said he’s leaning toward granting the request from the state’s gaming regulatory boards to dissolve the injunction, which effectively would prevent KalshiEx LLC from writing prediction contracts on sports outcomes within the state until the company’s lawsuit against the Nevada Gaming Control Board is resolved.
Experts have predicted that the dispute could ultimately be taken to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The judge encouraged both Kalshi and the state to find a resolution to the dispute before he rules on the injunction request.
Kalshi filed a lawsuit in March against the Control Board, the Nevada Gaming Commission and each of its individual members after the Control Board issued a cease-and-desist order preventing Kalshi from writing prediction contracts — yes-or-no propositions involving sporting event outcomes that closely resemble sports wagers.
Following a 2½-hour hearing, Gordon said he didn’t want to rush a decision, but that he was leaning toward ending the injunction. He asked attorneys from both parties to try to come to a resolution of their dispute by Nov. 24.
Gordon spent most of the morning asking a series of questions of Kalshi’s representative, William Havemann, and the regulators’ attorney, Nicole Saharsky.
If the parties can’t find a compromise, court hearings are expected to begin next month to resolve whether the derivative prediction markets can write contracts, even within states that haven’t approved sports wagering.
In Nevada, the concern by regulators and the Nevada Resort Association, which filed to become a part of the court case, is that prediction market companies like Kalshi, Robinhood and crypto.com are offering sports wagering without being licensed and have fewer protections against underage gambling with no safeguards on problem gambling.
The Kalshi representative said what the company is offering is not sports betting, even though the company markets itself as the only sports-betting operation in all 50 states.
Nevada regulators also are concerned that the state isn’t collecting any gaming tax revenue from Kalshi on its prediction contracts and has an unfair advantage over licensed operators.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.
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