On Jan. 9, Tennessee’s sports activities betting regulator despatched a set of letters that, at first look, regarded just like the sort of paperwork most crypto natives scroll previous.
The message was blunt: cease providing sports-related occasion contracts to Tennessee residents, void unsettled positions, and refund clients by Jan. 31.
The recipients, Kalshi, Polymarket, and Crypto.com, sit on the border between finance and playing.
A “sure/no” commerce on a sport consequence may be framed both as a federally regulated spinoff or as an unlicensed sportsbook.
Inside days, the battle moved to federal courtroom.
A US district choose in Nashville, Aleta Trauger, issued a brief restraining order blocking Tennessee from implementing its cease-and-desist in opposition to Kalshi whereas the case proceeds. She additionally set a Jan. 26 listening to on a longer-lasting injunction.
Tennessee says the corporate is operating an unlawful playing operation with no state license and permitting underage betting.
Kalshi says Tennessee is attempting to control merchandise that fall underneath the unique jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC).
The instant story is a state crackdown and a compliance deadline.
The bigger story is a jurisdictional stress check: Can a state sports activities wagering council fence off contracts {that a} federally designated trade claims it has the precise to record nationwide?
If states preserve pushing, what occurs to probably the most promising new retail funnel crypto has discovered since memecoins: an interface that turns present occasions into tradable contracts?
The jurisdiction battle: who will get to resolve what that is?
We have to start with the uncomfortable proven fact that each side have a credible-sounding authorized concept.
From Kalshi’s perspective, it’s not a sportsbook. It’s a chosen contract market, the CFTC’s time period for an trade regulated underneath the Commodity Alternate Act, akin to a standard futures venue that may serve retail individuals.
The CFTC has publicly described designated contract markets as exchanges working underneath its oversight.
In 2020, the company introduced it had granted KalshiEX an order of designation as a contract market.
Kalshi’s authorized argument leans on a strong clause in federal commodities legislation: the CFTC “shall have unique jurisdiction” over sure derivatives transactions, together with these traded on a chosen contract market.
That language exists as a result of Congress needed one nationwide referee for derivatives, quite than 50 state rulebooks.
From Tennessee’s perspective, none of that issues if the product, in substance, is sports activities wagering.
The Tennessee Sports activities Wagering Council (SWC) regulates sports activities betting underneath state legislation, together with who can wager (the letters and associated reporting cite greater than 21 necessities), what shopper protections apply, and what taxes licensed operators should pay.
The SWC accused the platforms of providing sports activities contracts with no license, violating state eligibility guidelines, and missing required protections.
It’s all language that frames occasion contracts as a shopper and public-interest drawback quite than a monetary innovation.
That is the place prediction markets collide with America’s peculiar regulatory geography: derivatives are largely federal, and playing is usually state.
Sports activities betting, specifically, is very native.
If a product can plausibly be described as both a spinoff or a wager, the query turns into which system is allowed to outline it first.
Tennessee’s case arrives after a headline-making loss for Kalshi in Nevada, the place a federal choose concluded the platform was topic to state gaming guidelines, a call Kalshi appealed.
That Nevada ruling undercuts the clear “federal preemption” story and emboldens states that see sports activities contracts as a workaround round licensing regimes they fought to construct.
On the similar time, the CFTC itself has despatched combined alerts, partly by design.
On its web site, the company describes occasion contracts as derivatives whose payoff relies on specified occasions (financial indicators, climate, damages from a hurricane).
It additionally emphasizes that CFTC Regulation 40.11 prohibits occasion contracts that reference terrorism, warfare, gaming, or actions illegal underneath state or federal legislation, amongst different classes.
Gaming is the fulcrum. If sports activities consequence contracts are seen as “gaming,” they’re within the forbidden zone.
In the event that they’re framed as “info contracts” with financial utility, they belong within the tradable universe the CFTC oversees.
In 2025, the CFTC issued an advisory noting that sports-related occasion contracts listed on designated contract markets had been listed through self-certification.
The advisory stated the Fee had not, so far, taken official approval motion on itemizing sports-related occasion contracts underneath sure CEA provisions.
Whereas the advisory had little sensible influence available on the market, its language reads like a regulator leaving itself room to intervene later.
So when Tennessee attracts its line, it isn’t simply daring Kalshi, Polymarket, or Crypto.com.
It’s testing whether or not the federal system will defend the premise {that a} nationally regulated derivatives trade can record sports-related contracts, and whether or not the CFTC will tolerate the class turning into a parallel sportsbook trade.
Compliance theater: what platforms do when the legislation is each in every single place and nowhere
The favored model of compliance is a guidelines: comply with the principles, file the varieties, transfer on.
That works when the principles are clear and the regulator is singular.
However prediction markets don’t have that luxurious.
They function in a jurisdictional overlap, and the overlap produces a definite sort of compliance conduct.
You would possibly name it compliance theater, not as a result of it’s faux, however as a result of it’s performative.
Each transfer you make, and each phrase you say within the compliance theater, sends a message about who you suppose has authority.
If a platform receives a cease-and-desist letter and instantly geofences the state, refunds customers, and voids contracts, it reduces authorized publicity and avoids penalties.
However it additionally concedes, in follow, that the state regulator’s concept is enforceable.
If it refuses, it could protect its authorized place, nevertheless it dangers escalating enforcement, together with civil fines and potential legal referrals.
It could additionally should spend months in courtroom to maintain working.
Reporting on the Tennessee letters described potential civil penalties of as much as $25,000 per violation for noncompliance.
Kalshi selected to litigate.
Reuters stories the corporate argued Tennessee was unconstitutionally attempting to ban contract buying and selling on its platform.
The choose’s short-term restraining order suggests the courtroom thinks Kalshi could have an actual case, at the very least at this early stage.
However even a win has prices. Litigation is sluggish, and markets are quick.
If an trade is in courtroom in eight states directly, as Reuters reported Kalshi has been, then operational certainty turns into a scarce useful resource.
Compliance groups, product roadmaps, and partnerships all get formed by what the subsequent state would possibly do.
The theater side exhibits up in product design, too.
Platforms can increase minimal ages, add “accountable playing” instruments, enhance AML processes, and tighten geo-controls as a lot as they need.
However every change may be learn two methods.
A state regulator could say: You’re admitting that is playing.
A federal-derivatives advocate could say: You’re performing like a mature market operator, the best way brokerages do after they prohibit sure dangerous merchandise.
Because of this the Tennessee letters matter past Tennessee.
A state-by-state enforcement strategy creates market fragmentation.
Liquidity will get chopped into permitted jurisdictions, person expertise deteriorates, affiliate distribution turns into more durable, and the product class stops trying like a nationwide market.
As an alternative, it begins to appear like an app with 50 completely different variations.
That fragmentation is precisely what crypto-native distribution was alleged to keep away from.
Data market or sports activities betting: the class id disaster
In monetary regulation, merchandise are sometimes judged by their financial function and their market construction.
Futures and choices exist not simply to invest however to hedge, uncover costs, and switch threat.
Playing legal guidelines, in contrast, are constructed round shopper hurt, dependancy threat, and the integrity of video games.
Occasion contracts can plausibly declare the primary angle when the occasion is financial.
A contract that settles on a CPI print, for instance, can be utilized to hedge inflation publicity or specific a view on macro threat.
That framing aligns with how the CFTC describes occasion contracts on its website, as macroeconomic indicators are one of many examples it supplies.
Sports activities are more durable.
What financial threat is being hedged by a binary contract on the end result of a soccer sport?
Some advocates argue sports activities markets mixture dispersed info (accidents, climate, technique) and might function high-signal prediction instruments.
Critics counter that the best clarification is the proper one: it’s a wager on a sport, provided in a wrapper that conveniently avoids sportsbook licensing.
The legislation anticipates this disagreement.
The CFTC’s 40.11 rule is specific about proscribing occasion contracts tied to “gaming,” and it additionally ties prohibition to actions which are illegal underneath state or federal legislation.
That’s precisely the lever Tennessee is pulling.
Right here is the difficult half for platforms: even when they consider sports activities contracts are permissible derivatives, the public-policy case for them is weaker than the case for election odds or inflation markets.
That issues as a result of the CFTC’s authority on this space is extra than simply technical; it’s public-interest flavored.
Reuters reported in 2024 that the CFTC proposed modifications to its occasion contract rule, reflecting authorized stress and the necessity to higher justify why sure classes ought to be handled as opposite to the general public curiosity.
The underlying theme is that “Can we record it?” isn’t only a statutory query; it’s additionally a reputational one.
Now add crypto to the combination.
The retail market desires a product that feels intuitive, social, and instant: a commerce you possibly can perceive with out studying AMMs or studying a whitepaper.
Sports activities occasion contracts are that product.
They sit on the intersection of fandom, real-time info, and the dopamine loop of a easy sure/no consequence.
That’s why the Tennessee letters goal the precise format that would rebuild crypto’s mainstream consideration with out asking customers to care about blockspace.
Which can be why states are reacting.
Sports activities betting is a tightly regulated and very profitable ecosystem.
If a federally regulated trade can supply an adjoining product nationwide with out state licensing, it threatens the gatekeeping mannequin that states depend on: taxes, shopper controls, and a managed operator record.
Even when the “occasion contracts” on these platforms are smaller in scale at this time, the precedent is giant.
What occurs subsequent
If Kalshi wins in Tennessee and related states, the class will get a shot at legitimacy.
Then the stress shifts to the CFTC to make clear whether or not sports activities contracts are appropriate with its public-interest mandate.
If states preserve successful, platforms will both retreat into geofenced compliance, turning nationwide liquidity into native swimming pools, or push customers towards workarounds that regulators can’t simply monitor.
The most probably near-term consequence is neither a clear federal victory nor a complete state shutdown, however a messy center.
Anticipate patchwork availability, periodic enforcement flashes, and a relentless id argument wherein “info markets” and “sports activities betting” preserve swapping masks relying on the courtroom.
And that, greater than the Jan. 31 refund deadline, is what makes Tennessee’s letters an actual market-structure story.
They’re forcing the trade to reply a query it has tried to postpone: In America, is a tradable sure/no contract on a sport a monetary instrument, or simply playing with higher UX?