Michigan judge blocks Kalshi sports contracts for 14 days with $120K daily fine threat
Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on Monday blocking Kalshi from offering sports event contracts to Michigan residents. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced her office secured the order, which carries a threatened $120,000 daily fine for noncompliance. Kalshi has since restricted access in the state while maintaining its contracts do not constitute sports betting. The action escalates the ongoing dispute between the CFTC and state regulators over jurisdiction of prediction market platforms.
The $120,000 daily fine threat turns a temporary pause into a hard financial ultimatum: Kalshi must either geofence Michigan entirely or risk burning cash while it fights. This is the second state to successfully ban Kalshi's sports products after Illinois's tax-and-license push, and Judge Aquilina's willingness to enjoin before any merits ruling gives other state attorneys general a faster playbook than federal preemption appeals.
Kalshi is already defending parallel actions in Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Massachusetts; each new front demands separate legal budgets and product restrictions. The 14-day window is short, but a second state copying Michigan's pre-merits injunction would confirm that state courts can move faster than the Sixth Circuit. Platforms now face a patchwork survival test: afford every fight simultaneously or retreat market by market.
Judge Aquilina has now blocked Kalshi sports contracts in Michigan; a federal judge's earlier denial of Polymarket's and Robinhood's injunction requests set precedent allowing the state action.