California Attorney General on Oct. 29 joined a bipartisan coalition of 37 attorneys general in an amicus brief supporting Utah's effort to enforce its sports gaming and gambling laws against prediction market operator Kalshi in KalshiEX LLC v. Cox, which is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Kalshi's appeal asks the Tenth Circuit to find that the federal Commodity Exchange Act preempts Utah's state constitutional ban on sports wagering as applied to sports event contracts traded on prediction markets. The attorneys general argue that federal preemption of state gambling laws as applied to prediction market providers is improper and undermines states' traditional role in regulating gambling and protecting vulnerable citizens, Bonta's office said.
It is the ninth time California has joined multistate amicus efforts targeting Kalshi and similar prediction market companies. The brief is comparable to others filed in the Third, Fourth, Sixth and Ninth Circuits and in support of New Jersey's petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue, the office said.
The coalition includes Republican- and Democratic-led states such as Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Washington and Wyoming.
“This filing is representative of our bipartisan commitment to protecting state regulatory authority over illegal, unregulated gambling operations,” Attorney General Bonta said. “Prediction markets cannot use federal loopholes to bypass state consumer protection, sports gaming, and gambling laws. By joining this brief, we are standing firmly with Utah and our state partners to ensure that federal commodities laws are not weaponized to evade state laws, fuel gambling addiction, and undermine state regulation of legal gaming.”
State
Rob Bonta
Attorney General · Democrat
Named 3 times in this story.
Portrait: Official portrait
Sources & methodology
This report was written from the primary materials below. Links open at the original publisher.
California Attorney GeneralSee something we should correct? Read our corrections policy.