SALT LAKE CITY — Governor Spencer Cox offered his support for criminal charges being leveled against Kalshi and two of its executives.
"It finally got their attention, because they've been flaunting our laws for a long time now," he told reporters at his monthly news conference on PBS Utah. "We're winning on the civil suit and I like our chances on the criminal suit as well."
Cox didn't anticipate extent of GOP's 'historic defeat' on Election Day:
The Utah Attorney General's Office filed felony-level gambling charges against Kalshi's CEO and COO, as well as the company itself. That is in addition to a civil lawsuit that Utah has filed against Kalshi, seeking to have it blocked from operating within the state. As a result of the criminal charges, other prediction market companies including DraftKings, Fanatics and Robinhood, have blocked Utah users from placing some contracts.
There has been a lot of litigation involving Kalshi, which sued Utah earlier this year to pre-emptively block any kind of crackdown on its prediction market trading within the state. Kalshi has maintained that it is engaged in contracts and trading based on those, which would be governed by federal laws and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. But a federal judge rejected Kalshi's claims and allowed the state to move forward with its crackdown under Utah's anti-gambling laws.
The Trump administration is currently suing Utah, asserting its authority over prediction markets. A review of court documents by FOX 13 News shows that a federal judge has now scheduled a hearing later this month on the CFTC's request to block Utah from any enforcement action against Kalshi and other prediction market companies.
Gov. Cox noted the legal battles between Utah, prediction market companies, and the federal government have led to some interesting alliances.
"You've got some places like Nevada and Utah, who believe the same thing on this issue," he said. "A state that is all in on gambling thinks that they should be regulating gambling in their state, not the federal government. And a state that is all out on gambling believes that we should be the ones that making that decision."
Kalshi has been blocked from operating in Nevada because of lawsuits filed there.