The fallout associated with Utah’s decision to file felony criminal charges against prediction market Kalshi and its co-founders continues. On Thursday, DraftKings Exchange and FanDuel Predicts both informed users that they will geo-restrict all sports, novelty, and political markets within the Beehive State.
The moves come in the aftermath of Utah’s headline-making decision to criminally charge Kalshi’s co-founders with 13 felony counts tied to offering illegal gambling to residents within the state.
On Thursday afternoon, CFTC Chairman Mike Selig took to social media to argue that Utah is engaging in “blatant overreach” by bringing felony criminal charges against the CFTC-regulated prediction market and its co-founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara.
“Threatening felony convictions and prison time for operating a lawful business is a blatant overreach that threatens the rule of law and the legal certainty that our financial markets depend upon,” Selig told his followers on X. “Utah has set a dangerous precedent that may have a chilling effect on financial services professionals within its state.” The chairman ended his post by saying, “Utah cannot unilaterally override federal law simply because the state disagrees with it. The CFTC will defend its statutory authority and protect the integrity of federally regulated markets.”
News broke on Thursday that Utah has asked a state court to issue a preliminary injunction against Kalshi that forces the prediction market to block its most popular event contracts in the state. According to a statement released earlier this week by Utah AG Derek Brown, the state wants to restrict all prediction markets linked to sports, politics, elections, culture, and “mentions.”
In an ironic twist, the federal lawsuit that the CFTC filed against Utah on Tuesday of this week has been reassigned to US District Court Judge Robert J. Shelby, the same judge who ruled against Kalshi back in August. Given how quickly FanDuel and DraftKings have removed most event contracts from their own exchanges, Utah could become next on a growing list of jurisdictions where Kalshi’s sports contracts are prohibited.
To date, Kalshi sports contracts have been geo-restricted on the lands of three tribes in California as well as in the states of Nevada, Michigan, Washington, and Massachusetts. Unlike the states mentioned above, Utah’s politics significantly align with Republican ideology while its constitution explicitly bans all forms of gambling.
Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) notified residents in the state that their votes could be nullified if they used prediction markets to trade on an election’s outcome. This week, the state’s attorney general reinforced Wisconsin’s position, according to a social media post by CNN senior reporter Marshall Cohen.
Wisconsin represents yet another state in which prediction markets such as Kalshi could soon find themselves facing geo-restriction mandates. Voters throughout the United States will take to the polls on Tuesday to cast their in-person ballots for the 2026 midterm elections.
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