Financeupdated 1h ago2 min read
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour Says State-Led Oversight Would Push Prediction Markets Offshore
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State-level regulation would force Kalshi to relocate its prediction markets offshore. Prediction market oversight rests with federal agencies, not state gambling authorities.
Kalshi’s offshore warning
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said state-led oversight of U.S. prediction markets would push the industry out of the United States, arguing that the dispute is about whether prediction markets “exist in the U.S. or whether they go offshore.” Mansour spoke at DC Fintech Week near Washington, and he said, “We feel pretty good about where we stand overall,” as federal appellate courts split on who regulates prediction markets.
Mansour rejected arguments that sports betting has no economic consequences, telling the event, “The notion that sports does not have economic consequence is ludicrous.” Mansour also said Kalshi’s position is that prediction contracts “fit elegantly into the definition of a commodity,” and he pointed to the Commodity Exchange Act as a basis for federal oversight.
Courts, states, and CFTC
New Jersey asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case after federal appellate courts split, with one major ruling on Kalshi’s side and two backing the states’ view.
Mansour said the legal fight is not merely jurisdictional, and he argued that the “choice is not whether states or the federal government regulate the market.”
The CFTC issued a rule and proposed another that were meant to place event contracts into the definition of swaps that are explicitly policed by the agency, not by state gambling regulators.
Mansour also denied accusations of inflated trading volume in bitcoin and ether perpetual-futures markets on Kalshi’s platform, attributing the claims to fixed-size orders from market makers.
Volume allegations and market design
Mansour said social media claims about volume spikes were wrong, and he told the DC Fintech Week audience, “Twitter went, like, 'Oh my God, there's a spike.” Mansour added, “It's none of it,” and he argued that “Markets are complex and not easy to understand.”
“On Twitter, people say, 'Oh my god, there's a spike—it must be volume inflation or something like that.'”
Mansour said Kalshi has designed its regulatory relationships from the outset so that prediction contracts “fit elegantly into the definition of a commodity.” Mansour warned that if individual states take over policing of CFTC-regulated event contracts, bettors would move to offshore platforms that answer to no one, according to Crypto Briefing’s account of his argument.