Kalshi loses Nevada rehearing bid in sports-contract case

The Ninth Circuit denied Kalshi’s requests for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc in its Nevada sports-contract dispute on 4 November, according to reports by CDC Gaming and Law360.

CDC Gaming reported that the panel rejected rehearing unanimously and that no judge requested a vote on en banc review. The case is KalshiEX LLC v. Assad, No. 25-7516.

What the August opinion decided

The court’s 28 August opinion upheld the dissolution of a preliminary injunction that had prevented Nevada officials from enforcing state law against Kalshi’s sports event contracts.

Kalshi argued that the Commodity Exchange Act gave the CFTC exclusive authority over those contracts and displaced Nevada’s gaming rules. The panel concluded that Kalshi had not shown it was likely to succeed on that pre-emption argument.

The majority rejected Kalshi’s interpretation of the statutory definition of a swap as applied to the sports contracts at issue. The opinion addressed preliminary protection against enforcement; it was not a final judgment resolving every claim in the underlying lawsuit.

The panel also sent the election-contract issue back to the district court for consideration. Its treatment of sports contracts should therefore not be presented as a final decision on the election contracts.

Prediction Frontier reviewed the August opinion. The November rehearing denial is attributed to CDC Gaming and Law360; Prediction Frontier has not independently reviewed the 4 November order.

Related: Kalshi and Coinbase lose New York and Connecticut injunction bids.