Prediction market provider Kalshi could receive a temporary restraining order from the state of Nevada after a federal appeals court refused to block such a motion on Thursday.
The Nevada Gaming Control Board sent Kalshi a cease-and-desist order in March 2025, ordering him to stop offering sports-related prediction market contracts. However, Kalshi said a subsequent request for a temporary restraining order by Nevada “seeked to prohibit Kalshi from offering all of its event contracts.” Kalshi attempted to move the case to federal court, but was scheduled to return to state court if the appeals court did not grant him an administrative stay.
On Thursday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Kalshi’s motion for an administrative stay in a federal case, clearing the way for the case to be returned to state court.
In his appeal filed March 13, Kalshi warned that he “faces imminent harm” if the appeals court did not grant his motion, as “the state court proceedings would undermine Kalshi’s appellate rights in this appeal” and a related action.
The platform said it could find itself litigating the same issue — that is, the question of whether Nevada state regulators have any jurisdiction — in four different places, including a Nevada state court, a Nevada federal court and two different appeals court cases.
“Allowing that to happen would create an untenable risk of subjecting Kalshi to conflicting federal and state court decisions,” the document said. “For example, the state court could rule against Kalshi and determine that the CEA does not preempt state gambling laws, while this court in Assad [another case] comes to exactly the opposite conclusion.”
Dan Wallach, a gaming attorney, said in a post on X that a temporary restraining order would ban Kalshi from Nevada entirely for at least two weeks, pending a hearing on a preliminary injunction.
The temporary restraining order could come about the next day, he said.
Kalshi and other prediction market providers face pushback in more than a dozen state actions, with state-level regulators arguing they have jurisdiction over at least sports-related betting products. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has argued that it has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction market providers and filed an amicus brief in one of the federal cases to defend that position.
The CFTC even signed a memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball, announced at the same time as MLB’s announcement that it had partnered with Polymarket.
