Michigan gaming regulator quits NCPG over Kalshi partnership
Michigan Gaming Control Board Executive Director Henry Williams withdrew the state regulator from the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) over the council's partnership with prediction market platform Kalshi. Williams wrote that Kalshi was running an illegal gambling platform. The exit comes as Michigan is already suing Kalshi over its sports betting operations and a state judge has blocked Kalshi's sports contracts with a $120,000 daily fine threat.
Williams's resignation letter frames Kalshi as an illegal gambling operator, not a CFTC-regulated exchange. That hardens Michigan's litigation position and gives other state attorneys general a public endorsement from a gaming regulator for their own gambling-law theories. Kalshi is already fighting parallel actions in Illinois, Minnesota, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. Each new state that rejects its CFTC registration as a shield forces separate legal spending and product geofences. The NCPG split also isolates Kalshi from problem-gambling infrastructure that platforms need for political defense. Williams's stance invites copycat exits by other state gaming boards that belong to the council.
Kalshi now faces expanded state-level attacks on two fronts: Michigan's regulator has joined Massachusetts and four other states in treating the CFTC-registered platform as an illegal gambling operator, with Massachusetts letting its attorney general expand a gaming suit using under-21 targeting theories that other states can copy without waiting for federal preemption rulings.