The Ninth Circuit ruled on Aug. 28 that Nevada’s gaming laws apply to sports-event contracts offered by Kalshi, Crypto.com and Robinhood. In a 3-0 decision, the court rejected the argument that the products are federally regulated financial instruments beyond the reach of state gaming regulators.
In the opinion, the panel said Kalshi had not shown the Commodity Exchange Act likely preempted Nevada’s gaming rules as applied to its contracts. It concluded the contracts were not “swaps” under the statute because they were sports bets, even though Kalshi argued it was a designated contract market and that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had exclusive authority. The court also affirmed the dissolution of the preliminary injunction and sent the election-contract claims back for further proceedings.
As covered in our earlier reports, Nevada’s fight over prediction markets began in 2025, when the state gaming board issued cease-and-desist letters and the litigation moved through injunction rulings. The board’s timeline says Kalshi won a preliminary injunction in April 2025, while later warnings and suits brought Crypto.com and Robinhood into the same dispute. Nevada says sports event contracts count as wagering activity under state statute, so firms offering them must be licensed in the state.
Aaron Ford called the ruling a “major victory for Nevada”:https://www.kolotv.com/2026/08/29/attorney-gen-aaron-ford-announces-courtroom-victory-that-protects-nevadas-right-regulate-sports-betting/?outputType=amp’s longstanding authority to regulate gaming, and said sports betting does not become something else simply because a company calls it an event contract. Quartz reported that a CFTC spokesperson disagreed, saying the panel was wrong to conclude that sports-related event contracts fall outside the swap definition and that the court had invented a new exception to the Commodity Exchange Act.
