Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed a petition Wednesday asking the Supreme Court to review the Sixth Circuit's ruling that federal law preempts New Jersey's authority to regulate Kalshi's sports event contracts. The petition argues that the Commodity Exchange Act does not strip states of their power to enforce gambling statutes against prediction market operators, and that the Sixth Circuit's reading of CFTC preemption conflicts with how other circuits have handled similar questions of federal displacement.
New Jersey's filing arrives after the Sixth Circuit ruled unanimously that Kalshi's contracts qualify as CFTC-regulated instruments and that state enforcement actions must yield to federal jurisdiction. Platkin's petition contends that ruling leaves states without any mechanism to protect residents from products that function, in practice, as sports wagers regardless of how they are classified federally.