Kalshi chief executive Tarek Mansour said the company’s legal battle over who should regulate U.S. prediction markets could determine whether the industry remains in the country or moves offshore. Speaking at DC Fintech Week near Washington on Wednesday, Mansour said he was confident about Kalshi’s legal position, despite a split among federal appeals courts.
A dispute over state and federal authority
Kalshi operates an exchange for event contracts, financial products whose value is linked to the outcome of events. Sports-related contracts have become a major part of the debate, with states arguing that these products amount to sports betting and should be supervised by state gambling regulators.
Kalshi and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator overseeing its exchange, take the opposite position. They argue that prediction markets fall under federal authority and that the CFTC should be their sole regulator.
Mansour framed the legal question as more consequential than a simple choice between state and federal supervision. “It’s not a choice of state versus federal market,” he said. “It’s a choice of whether prediction markets exist in the U.S. or whether they go offshore.”
A growing number of states have brought legal challenges against Kalshi and other prediction-market operators. The dispute has reached several federal appellate courts, which have not agreed on the issue. One significant ruling supported Kalshi’s position, while two others sided with the states’ interpretation that sports contracts are subject to state regulation.
That conflict has prompted New Jersey to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the matter. The National Football League is among the prominent organizations that have submitted views to the high court.
Kalshi’s case for federal regulation
Mansour said he felt “pretty good” about the company’s overall legal position, even though some federal courts have ruled against Kalshi’s view. He argued that sports-related contracts have meaningful economic consequences and rejected the idea that sports outcomes lack the economic significance needed for treatment as federally regulated financial contracts.
“The notion that sports does not have economic consequence is ludicrous,” Mansour said.
He also described Kalshi’s regulatory model as consistent with the Commodity Exchange Act. In his account, the law’s definitions have accommodated the development of commodity markets beyond agricultural futures, including oil, metals, swaps and less tangible financial products.
The CFTC has recently taken steps intended to strengthen its authority over prediction markets. According to CoinDesk, the agency issued a rule last week and proposed another measure designed to classify event contracts as swaps. Such a classification would place them explicitly under CFTC supervision rather than the authority of state gambling regulators.
The legal outcome could therefore affect not only Kalshi, but also the broader framework available to prediction-market companies operating in the United States. The competing court decisions have left the question unsettled while the Supreme Court considers whether to take up New Jersey’s request.
Mansour addresses trading-volume allegations
Mansour also responded to accusations on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Kalshi’s reported trading volumes in bitcoin and ether perpetual-futures markets may have been inflated. The questions centered on recurring trades of fixed sizes that represented a substantial share of activity on the platform.
He attributed those orders to market makers, participants that continuously post buy and sell orders to help facilitate trading. Mansour said the recurring trade sizes were not evidence of fabricated activity and criticized what he described as misunderstandings about how markets operate.
“There’s a lot of crazy” discussion on X, he said, adding that the alleged volume inflation was “none of it.” He said markets can be difficult to understand and that social-media reactions to unusual-looking activity may not reflect how orders are actually generated.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar market data at the stated times shows mixed performance among the listed assets:
- WOULD was priced at $0.0351412837, up 0.33% over 24 hours and 10.6% over seven days, as of September 22, 2026, at 21:04 +03:30.
- RedStone (RED) traded at $0.1572671494, up 0.1% in 24 hours and 8.15% over seven days, as of October 15, 2026, at 21:03 +03:30.
- Ark (ARK) stood at $0.1814701232, down 1.63% over 24 hours and 18.97% over seven days, as of October 15, 2026, at 21:04 +03:30.
These figures are Moneyiar data at the specified times and are separate from the legal dispute surrounding Kalshi’s prediction-market contracts.
