Kalshi Scrubs 'Bookmaking' and 'Sports Betting' From Its USPTO Filings — the Vocabulary Is Now a Legal Strategy
Kalshi's May trademark filings replaced the gambling terminology of its November 2025 USPTO submissions — which described 'bookmaking services' and 'sports betting and gambling tournaments' — with 'prediction market services' and 'trades and wagers.' The reframing lands while six state preemption suits, a pending CFTC rule, and a Congressional insider-trading probe all turn on exactly one question: is this product a financial instrument or a bet?
Kalshi has rewritten the language of its federal trademark filings. In a 10 November 2025 submission to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the company described its business as providing "bookmaking services, namely, providing of information related to sports betting; organizing, arranging, conducting sports betting and gambling tournaments, competitions and contests." Filings submitted in May 2026 drop that vocabulary entirely, replacing it with "prediction market services" and the more neutral "trades and wagers." The substantive product has not changed — what changed is what Kalshi calls it in the federal record.
The timing explains the edit. Every major legal fight Kalshi is in turns on a single classification question: are event contracts commodity derivatives under exclusive CFTC jurisdiction, or gambling subject to state gaming codes? Six states are in active federal preemption litigation; the CFTC's proposed rule is under White House review; and the House Oversight Committee has a pending insider-trading probe. In that environment, a federal filing in which Kalshi itself used the words "bookmaking services" is a gift to every state attorney general arguing the gambling characterisation. Litigators routinely mine an opponent's own regulatory submissions for admissions; the May revision closes that exhibit.
The vocabulary cleanup arrives alongside a substantive move in the same direction: Kalshi's May partnership with the National Council on Problem Gambling, a $2 million commitment over two years that makes it the first financial trading platform to partner with the organisation. CEO Tarek Mansour framed the investment as setting "a new standard for responsible trading" — note the construction: responsible trading, not responsible gambling, in a partnership with an organisation that has 'Problem Gambling' in its name. UK readers will recognise the manoeuvre from the spread-betting industry's decades-long insistence that it is trading rather than gambling — a distinction the UK resolved by regulating spread betting under the FCA rather than the Gambling Commission, which is precisely the jurisdictional outcome Kalshi is engineering towards in the US.
The deeper play is the institutional pivot. Kalshi is actively courting brokers, hedge funds, and financial firms — the same strategy visible in its April block-trade debut, the Sportradar data deal, and the perpetual-futures launch announced in late May. Every institutional milestone makes the financial-instrument characterisation more credible in court. Critics are right that the consumer-facing product still looks and feels like betting on sports — Kalshi listed nearly 500 World Cup markets this week. Both things are true at once, and that ambiguity is not a flaw in Kalshi's strategy; it is the strategy. The USPTO filings are a small but telling piece of that project: when the courts eventually settle what this product is, Kalshi wants the paper trail on its side.
Operators mentioned in this article
Recent updates
Utah Files Felony Charges Against Kalshi and Its Founders — Second State to Criminally Charge a Platform
Utah filed criminal charges against Kalshi and its two co-founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, on October 28 — 13 felonies and a misdemeanour, including a second-degree 'pattern of unlawful criminal activity' count and 12 counts of online gambling promotion. The charges stem from a September sting in which an undercover agent placed 12 sports wagers verified to be in Utah. The CFTC sued Utah the day before to block state enforcement, its tenth such suit. Utah is the second state after Arizona to criminally charge Kalshi, and the first to charge the founders personally. Kalshi called it a 'crazy overreach.'
NBA Names Kalshi and Polymarket Preferred Exchanges — Leaving the NFL Alone in Opposition
The NBA announced on October 26 that it has named Kalshi and Polymarket its 'preferred prediction market exchanges,' signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the CFTC on basketball integrity, and expanded its DraftKings deal to include prediction markets — the first league to extend a sportsbook partnership into the category. The exchange deals bar league and team personnel from trading NBA contracts, limit permissible markets, and require sharing suspicious-trading data, in exchange for NBA intellectual property and official data. The NBA joins MLB, the NHL, and MLS as partnered leagues, leaving the NFL as the lone major holdout — and the only league fighting the platforms in court.
CFTC Chair Says Agency Is Watching Prediction Markets for Manipulation Ahead of Midterms
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said on October 23 that the agency is closely monitoring prediction markets for manipulation ahead of the November 3 midterms, and that it is separately scrutinising oil market trading tied to President Trump's announcements about the war in Iran. Combined midterm open interest on Kalshi and Polymarket stood at $250 million as of October 18, with Kalshi holding 84%. Selig acknowledged the agency often catches political figures trading 'oftentimes after the fact.' The remarks highlight the CFTC's dual role as both the platforms' federal protector and their manipulation watchdog.