Kalshi CEO: “The state law does not really apply to us.”

Last week, the Kalshi prediction market starts A lawsuit against New Jersey and Nevada After they tried to turn it on the recently launched sports trading. in suitKALSHI claimed that it is a federal organized platform, government games committees do not have the authority to set their bases.

“We are not necessarily very concerned (because) we are organized at the federal level,” Kalshi Tarek Mansour said last week at the Strictlyvc event in San Francisco. “The state law does not really apply.”

If KALSHI won these lawsuits, the startup company can secure its place in the profitable market for sports. However, the legal challenge may pave the way for a clash between state organizers and the Trump administration.

This is not the first time that Mansour has challenged an organized authority. Last year, like Shi He won a major legal battle Against the commodity futures trading committee (CFTC), allowing it to be treated More than a billion dollars in trading Based on the results of the political elections in 2024.

In the fight of CFTC, “We had to eat a lot of shit over the past five years,” Mansour said. “I will do it again in the heartbeat.”

From political elections to sports

In January, Kalshi made a jump in the prediction markets markets, allowing users at the country level to bet on the results of March Madness and Super Bowl – even in the 11 states where the gambling is illegal.

However, six states where the sports betting is legal – including Nevadaand New Jerseyand Illinoisand Marylandand OhioAnd Montana -Send the stops of Kalshi, which claims that the sporting prediction markets are the actual sports bets. He argues that Kalshi are not licensed properly, and it does not pay state taxes on the sports deals it provides.

“We have a license. It is by CFTC.”

Mansour argued on the stage that the real motivation behind these messages to stop stopping and messages was “a huge unhappy casino lobby” regarding the sports trading contracts in Calish.

On Tuesday, Calci achieved the first legal victory in a lawsuit against Nevada. A federal judge spent that Calchi could Continue work in NevadaAt least until the case is settled.

The prediction markets are a relatively new financial tools, which means that it is somewhat unclear the laws that apply to them and that do not do so. KALSHI seems to benefit fully from mystery, allowing users to bet on everything under the sun, from the date of leaving Elusk Doge to the winner of the world series.

However, the legal battle of Kalshi should provide some clarity in the domain of prediction markets.

Trump links

The prediction market in Calchi, and others like that, showed that Trump will win the days of US presidential elections for the year 2024 before the election night, despite other opinion polls that indicate otherwise. In the following months, ties to the Tram administration have grown strong.

“(Calchi) was the only source of the truth that people had about the fact that Donald Trump, in fact, had a 63 % chance to win the American elections,” Mansour said.

In January, Calchi It brought Donald Trump Junior.Son of the President, as a strategic advisor. In February, President Trump was appointed Former KALSHI Board Member of CFTC leadership. In March, the senior lawyer Kalchi left the company Work with the Doge’s Elon Musk collection In the Securities and Stock Exchange Committee.

On the stage, Mansour reduced his reliance on the Trump administration, but praised him for being a “supportive” in the financial services sector.

Gambling for prediction

The main question in the legal battle of Kalshi is whether the prediction markets are just a simple gambling. It seems that state organizers believe this, but Mansour argues that they are not, as he told Techcrunch on stage.

According to Mansour, gambling involves creating artificial risks, and betting on them – such as the rolling of death and betting on the number that comes.

Instead, the CEO of KALSHI is arguing that prediction markets are like exchanging derivatives, which have some risks, but in the end of the market participants “price”, or an understanding of a threat, some assets or events that are impossible to evaluate otherwise. Derivative exchanges provide unique information, so a special case is granted.

An example of KALSHI’s economic benefit, Mansour referred to the TIKTOK prediction market.

Mansour said: “Tiktok is something that you couldn’t have before,” Mansour said. “It is a very important thing that we had no kind of scale about what would happen, so I love this market a lot.”

Of course, it takes advantage of Mansour to make these arguments. Kalshi’s value was lastly $ 787 million, according to Pitchbook data. However, if KALSHI managed to secure its place in the world of sports, it is possible that the startup evaluation will rise further.

a witness Full interview here.