A Ninth Circuit panel on Thursday denied emergency requests from Kalshi and Polymarket to halt gambling-related enforcement actions in Nevada and Washington, sending both cases back to state court. The judges ruled the companies failed to demonstrate they would succeed in arguing the disputes belonged in federal court — a critical threshold they needed to clear.
The court rejected the platforms' core argument that CFTC "exclusive jurisdiction" over event-outcome contracts automatically overrides state gambling law. Raising a federal preemption defense, the panel wrote, "cannot by itself give rise to federal question jurisdiction." Polymarket's separate claim — that CFTC compliance put it under federal direction — was also dismissed outright.
The ruling deepens a growing split between state and federal courts.
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