Sixth Circuit rules Ohio and Tennessee can regulate Kalshi sports contracts
The Sixth Circuit ruled Friday that Ohio and Tennessee may enforce state gambling laws against Kalshi's sports-related event contracts. The decision rejects Kalshi's argument that federal oversight preempts state regulation. The platform must now geofence users in those states. EKG counted $31.1 billion in U.S. sports prediction-market execution volume through September, underscoring the market at stake as states test jurisdictional limits.
Kalshi now must geofence Ohio and Tennessee users, turning a federal preemption strategy into a state-by-state compliance drain. The ruling deepens a circuit split that already stripped Kalshi of its shield in Nevada and has platforms fighting parallel suits in Michigan, Connecticut, Maryland, and Missouri.
Robinhood and other CFTC-registered venues face identical exposure because the same reasoning reaches any platform offering sports-linked contracts. Legal budgets that could fund product expansion now feed a geofence cascade. Each new state filing fragments the national market further. The Supreme Court remains the only path to uniform rules, but competing Crypto.com and Robinhood petitions are already crowding a limited docket.