Utah Attorney General Derek Brown filed criminal charges Wednesday against prediction market platform Kalshi, its CEO Tarek Mansour, and COO Luana Lopes Lara in state court. According to court filings, each defendant faces 13 felony charges and one misdemeanor for violating gambling laws based on sports bets offered on the platform between September 13 and September 24.
No arrest warrants were issued for Mansour and Lopes Lara; instead, they received summons to appear in Third District Court in Salt Lake County, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.
Utah has long prohibited gambling—it is one of only two states where gambling is banned both by state law and state constitution. “Kalshi runs an online casino in Utah and calls it a prediction market,” Brown said. “That violates Utah law. For 130 years, Utah has been clear: gambling has no place here, and we will enforce our laws.”
The criminal charges follow a civil lawsuit filed by Utah last week seeking to prohibit Kalshi from offering bets on sports, elections, politics, and other events. Kalshi had previously filed a preemptive federal lawsuit attempting to block Utah from enforcing its gambling laws, but lost that case.
Kalshi vowed to challenge the charges. “This is a crazy overreach; Utah is clearly playing politics,” the company stated. “We look forward to putting a stop to this in court, just like we did in Arizona,” referring to similar charges the company defeated in May.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is intervening on Kalshi’s behalf. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued Utah to prevent enforcement of its gambling ban against the prediction market platform. Utah is now the 10th state sued by the federal agency that regulates prediction markets. The CFTC’s involvement signals a clash between federal regulatory authority over derivatives and prediction markets and state gambling prohibitions.
Key facts
- Kalshi and two co-founders face 13 felonies and 1 misdemeanor each for offering sports bets in Utah
- Utah is one of only two states that prohibit gambling in both state law and its constitution
- Kalshi previously defeated similar charges filed by Arizona in May
- The Trump administration’s CFTC has sued Utah, making it the 10th state targeted in such litigation
- No arrest warrants were issued; the co-founders received summons to appear in court