Utah has filed 14 criminal charges against prediction market platform Kalshi and its two co-founders.

October 29 — The U.S. state of Utah has filed 14 criminal charges against prediction market platform Kalshi and its two co-founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, including 1 felony count of allegedly engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity, 12 counts of promoting online gambling, and 1 misdemeanor gambling charge.

Prosecutors allege that an undercover operative from the Utah Attorney General's Office accessed Kalshi in September using a local address, phone number, and debit card, and placed 12 sports event bets on the platform, based on which the state accuses the platform of promoting illegal gambling locally.

The criminal prosecution comes days after the Utah Attorney General filed a civil lawsuit seeking to block Kalshi from accepting bets from Utah residents and to recover profits it allegedly earned in the state.

Kalshi has previously argued that its sports event contracts are financial derivatives regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not gambling, and should not be subject to state-level regulation.

However, Utah and several other states maintain that prediction market platforms must still comply with state gambling laws. The CFTC has also sued Utah, arguing that such contracts should be regulated at the federal level.