A company that continues to offer event contracts on a Nevada prediction marketplace is seeking an emergency motion to delay a judge’s order remanding the case to a district court in Carson City.
New York-based KalshiEx LLC on Tuesday filed an emergency motion in U.S. District Court in Nevada, seeking a stay pending its appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board filed a lawsuit against Polymarket, another entity that writes event prediction contracts, in First District Court in Carson City to block it from writing event contracts on the outcome of sporting events.
The Gambling Commission claims that event contracting for sports is a form of sports betting that is illegal without a gambling licence. Kalshi and Polymarket say they are exempt from state gambling laws because they are regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
“As this court knows, the ultimate issues in this case are whether federal law — specifically the CEA (Commodity Exchange Act) — preempts Nevada’s attempts to regulate trading in the DCM (designated contract market) subject to the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction,” Kalshi’s lawyers wrote in their motion. “These are not new issues. Chief Justice (Andrew) Gordon has already spent nearly a year adjudicating these very issues in related proceedings, and the Ninth Circuit is holding arguments on April 16, 2026.”
Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer has said operators like Kalshi and Polymarket would be welcome in Nevada if approved for licensing to take sports bets.
Regulators fear that prediction markets have few safeguards to protect against underage gambling and have no programs to warn of problem gambling.
Kalshi attorneys have proposed that briefs be filed by Friday with responses due Monday in the emergency motion.
Suing prediction markets in state court is a new strategy adopted by gambling regulators across the country.
Florida-based gaming attorney Daniel Wallach wrote on X that eight states and two Indian tribes have pending lawsuits against Kalshi. Nevada has been joined by gaming regulators in New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Ohio, New York, Connecticut and Tennessee against the company. Tribal operations in California and Michigan have also filed suit against Kalshi.
Cease-and-desist letters have also been sent to Kalshi by regulators in Arizona, Illinois and Montana, Wallach said.
“The decision could encourage other states to sue Kalshi in state court and seek injunctions to block event contracts, a strategy that has so far been successful in all cases,” Wallach wrote in a Tuesday X post.
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