Montana pauses enforcement against Kalshi during en banc appeal
Montana agreed not to enforce against Kalshi while the platform's en banc appeal petition is pending. The pause halts state regulatory action as Kalshi seeks a full-court rehearing. Separately, Kalshi appeared in New Mexico federal court Wednesday to dispute with four Indigenous nations over whether its CFTC-regulated sports event contracts may be offered on tribal land. The tribes claim the contracts violate their exclusive sports betting rights under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Kalshi argues its federally regulated products fall outside tribal gaming jurisdiction. No immediate ruling issued.
Kalshi now fights on two unrelated fronts, and each loss on either one emboldens opponents on the other. The Montana pause is temporary; a failed en banc bid restores immediate enforcement risk. The New Mexico tribal suit, if successful, would add tribal lands to the geofence list that already includes California and Nevada.
Robinhood and Polymarket face identical exposure because the same tribal and state reasoning reaches any platform offering sports-linked contracts. Traders hold positions whose validity shifts with geography, not regulation. Legal spend compounds across parallel cases faster than any single resolution. The Supreme Court remains the only path to uniform rules, yet cert grants are rare and the docket is crowded with platform petitions.
The New Mexico hearing joins a string of tribal-land defeats that now spans California, Nevada, and Missouri, as Kalshi's preemption theory collapses circuit by circuit while the Supreme Court has not yet acted on any platform's cert petition.