Utah Attorney General Derek Brown on Oct. 29 charged prediction-market platform Kalshi and co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara with 13 felony-level counts plus a single misdemeanor charge.
In total, prosecutors brought 14 counts: 12 for promoting illegal gambling, one felony count alleging a pattern of unlawful activity, and one misdemeanor gambling charge. The charging document traces the case to an undercover sting in which a state agent placed 12 sports wagers on Kalshi in September.
Kalshi maintains those wagers aren’t gambling but financial derivatives regulated federally by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. A day earlier, on Oct. 28, the CFTC itself sued Utah, seeking to block the state from enforcing its gambling laws against markets the agency says fall under its jurisdiction.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said Congress entrusted the agency with “sole responsibility to oversee these markets.”
Brown rejected that framing: “Gambling is illegal in Utah, whether you place the bet, run the game, or promote it. Calling it a ‘prediction market’ doesn’t change what it is.”
Kalshi had not answered CoinDesk’s request for comment on the charges by publication time.
Brown’s office had already sued Kalshi on Oct. 20 in a related civil case that also named trading firms such as Susquehanna. Kalshi itself sued Utah in February over the dispute, but a court dismissed that case.
