Kalshi geofences Washington traders after court order, files for reconsideration
Kalshi has begun geofencing Washington state users from certain event contracts after a King County Superior Court judge ordered the platform to restrict access. The platform also asked the court to reconsider, noting that another CFTC-designated contract market offers similar products without state blocking. The compliance move follows a pattern of state courts rejecting Kalshi's argument that federal designation preempts local gambling law.
Every state court loss forces Kalshi into the same binary choice: build expensive geofences or watch open contracts get voided under local gambling law. The Washington order extends the same geographic fracture that already hits users in Connecticut, Wisconsin, New York, and Utah. Traders now face contract validity that depends on state lines, not CFTC registration. Kalshi filed for reconsideration but kept the geofence live, signaling it expects to lose.
The platform's national expansion assumed federal designation would block state enforcement. That assumption is collapsing market by market. Connecticut traders now face the same geography-dependent validity that already hits Kalshi users in Washington, Wisconsin, New York, and Utah. Appeals stretch across months with no uniform standard in sight, and every new filing stretches compliance resources thinner.