A King County Superior Court judge has ordered KalshiEX to stop much of its business in Washington after finding the company was likely violating the state’s gambling and consumer-protection laws. The final order bars the prediction-market operator from offering, accepting or facilitating a wide range of wagers in the state, and it sets deadlines for a geofencing system meant to keep Washington users out.
The order covers sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech and science, as well as so-called “mentions” bets, in which users wager on whether a public figure will say particular words. As reported in July, the same court had already granted a preliminary injunction after finding KalshiEX likely violated the Washington Gambling Act and the Washington Consumer Protection Act, and that Washington consumers faced substantial injury without court intervention.
The court said KalshiEX must add an IP-address and residency-based geofence by 19 August, then implement a multi-source geofencing solution by 2 September. The judge also barred the company from advertising the covered wagers to Washington consumers, including sports and election contracts.
The Washington attorney general said the order does not reach every wager KalshiEX offers, but it does cover a substantial part of the company’s business. State officials said that part of the business has increasingly been driven by sports wagers in recent years.
Attorney General Nick Brown said Kalshi had “gotten rich” promoting wagers on sports, elections, natural disasters and other topics, and that the company was now banned from offering most of those wagers in Washington. The court also ruled that Kalshi’s “provision, marketing, and advertising of illegal gambling activities constitute unfair and/or deceptive acts or practices.”
The state argued that Kalshi’s model fits Washington’s gambling definition because each bet risks money, depends in part on chance and promises a payout to winners. It also said Kalshi’s website and app present events and odds that determine a bettor’s payout, which the attorney general described as “exactly how sportsbooks and other gambling operations function.”
On the “mentions” bets, the state said the format is especially vulnerable to cheating by people close to the source and therefore unfair to consumers. Brown also argued that Kalshi’s advertising was deceptive, including an ad in which one person texts another that they had found a way to bet on the NFL even though they live in Washington.
The attorney general’s office said it will continue to enforce Washington law. It pointed to the state’s long history of gambling restrictions, including a constitutional ban on gambling on state lands when Washington became a state in 1889 and a 2006 amendment to the 1973 Gambling Act making clear that internet gambling is prohibited.
