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Ninth Circuit Rejects Kalshi and Polymarket Bid to Pause Nevada and Washington Cases

Ninth Circuit Rejects Kalshi and Polymarket Bid to Pause Nevada and Washington Cases

The Ninth Circuit denied efforts to halt the disputes and sent the matters back to state court, as Nevada regulators argue some prediction markets amount to unlicensed gambling despite CFTC-related preemption claims.

Fact Check
The claim is strongly supported by multiple independent, credible sources all published on May 22, 2026. Bloomberg Law, The Block, crypto.news, DeFiRate, and Odaily all consistently report that the Ninth Circuit denied emergency motions from Kalshi and Polymarket to pause gambling enforcement cases in Nevada and Washington. The Block and DeFiRate provide specific legal details (CFTC preemption as affirmative defense, May 21 order date) that further corroborate the claim. There are no conflicting reports. The claim accurately characterizes the ruling as denying bids to pause the cases, allowing them to proceed in state courts.
Summary

The Ninth Circuit denied bids by Kalshi and Polymarket to halt proceedings tied to lawsuits in Nevada and Washington and sent the cases back to state court. The dispute centers on whether federal authority through the CFTC preempts state gambling law, but the appeals court allowed the state actions to continue. Nevada gaming regulators, who sued in February, allege that some markets offered unlicensed gambling. The ruling keeps alive the broader legal fight over whether prediction market contracts should be treated as federally regulated derivatives or as products subject to state gambling enforcement.

Terms & Concepts
  • Prediction market: A platform where users trade contracts tied to future events, with market prices often interpreted as estimates of the likelihood of specific outcomes.
  • CFTC: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator overseeing derivatives markets and central to the preemption dispute in these cases.
  • derivatives: Financial contracts whose value is linked to an underlying asset or event; the cases dispute whether certain event-based contracts fall under this category.