Washington AG alleges Kalshi is in ‘direct violation’ of state gambling laws in lawsuit

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown announced Friday that his office has filed a lawsuit against online prediction market Kalshi, alleging the company has illegally skirted “some of the most restrictive gambling laws in the United States” while operating in the state.

The lawsuit, filed in King County Superior Court, alleges that the company operates in “direct violation” of state laws that prohibit gambling, except for sports wagers placed on tribal lands.

Brown is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the company from operating in the state immediately. As the case moves forward, Brown said the state would determine how much money was taken from Washingtonians as it considers how much to seek in damages.

A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.

“For the past few years, the online gambling company Kalshi has allowed people to bet on almost every aspect of our lives. Sports, elections, the length of presidential press conferences,” Brown said during a press conference Friday. “And the company takes in huge sums of money from Washingtonians. And when it does that, it violates Washington state law.”

Founded in 2018 and launched in 2021, the site markets itself as a “regulated exchange & prediction market where you can trade on the outcome of real-world events.” While the company promotes that users can “bet on anything,” more than 90% of the activity on Kalshi and 89% of its revenue last year was from sports betting.

The site is currently available to anyone 18 or older and can be accessed through phone apps or online. The trading volume on the site reached $23.8 billion in 2025.

“Kalshi, in its words, says what it does is not gambling. They reframe it as a prediction market. But if you spend just a moment on their website, you’ll see very easily that this is a gambling site,” Brown said. “They claim to offer a financial product, but Kalshi really is just a bookie with a fancy title and a huge amount of venture capital behind it.”

Last year, the company expanded its operations in Washington by allowing users to bet on how many points would be scored in a game, the point difference between teams and specific game outcomes, such as how many points a specific player scores. The lawsuit notes that users were able to place bets on a Jan. 2 men’s basketball game between Gonzaga and Seattle universities.

Users can also place parlays, which offer the chance to receive higher payouts by successfully placing wagers on multiple events.

“Over time, the scope of Kalshi’s offerings has expanded to a nearly limitless array of political, popular culture, and other issues to bet on, including, for example, the total number of ‘measles cases this year’ and ‘what will witnesses say’ during a child trafficking hearing,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit notes that through the site, users can place wagers on a variety of political topics, including the outcome of the 2025 election for King County Executive, who will win the August primaries ahead of the midterms, the 2028 race for Washington governor, which party will control the Washington state Senate and who will win the 2028 U.S. presidential election.

“Kalshi also offers Washingtonians opportunities to bet on numerous political issues and elections outside the United States, including, as one of many examples, who will become the next mayor of Lyon, France,” the lawsuit states.

While the company brands itself as a prediction market, Brown said its operations violate the Washington state Gambling Act and Consumer Protection Act.

The site promotes itself through frequent television and digital advertisements. In one ad cited by the Attorney General’s Office, one person sends a text to another that he “found a way to bet on the NFL even though we live in Washington.”

Brown said Friday that online gambling is “uniquely dangerous.”

“When people suffer from problem gambling, they can lose their homes, their families, even their lives,” Brown said. “And despite these dangers, Kalshi has engaged in influencer campaigns targeting college students, even trying to recruit 15-year-old kids to promote gambling to their followers.”

According to an October poll from Pew Research, 22% of adults said they had personally bet money on sports in the past year, up from 19% in 2021. At the same time, a growing number of adults fear the effects that legal gambling could have.

The same poll found that 43% of Americans believe it’s bad that sports betting is legal in some fashion in much of the country, up from 34% in 2022.

Washington joins an increasing number of states filing legal action against Kalshi. Last week, Arizona filed criminal charges against the company, alleging that Kalshi operates an illegal gambling business without a license. On March 20, a judge in Nevada banned Kalshi from operating in the state for 14 days because it did not obtain a gambling license.

Across the world, more than 50 countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom, have restricted its use.

The ability to wager on the outcomes of college sports also caught the attention of state lawmakers, who passed legislation earlier this year to allow wagering on college athletics on tribal lands. The bill is currently waiting for action by Gov. Bob Ferguson.

Kevin Zenishek, executive director of casino operations at Northern Quest Resort and Casino in Airway Heights, told members of the Senate Business Committee in January that “with apps like Kalshi at the federal level, you can place a wager now in Washington state on the Huskies, the Cougs or the Zags.”