NFL, 39 State AGs, and Cabazon Tribe Urge SCOTUS to Hear Kalshi Case as Kalshi Delays Response to November 9
October 8 was the amicus brief deadline in New Jersey's Supreme Court petition (Flaherty v. KalshiEX), producing a wave of filings urging the Court to take the case. The NFL argued sports event contracts are gambling, not swaps. Ohio led 39 state attorneys general and DC; the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians — whose 1987 Supreme Court case established the modern tribal gaming framework — also filed. Meanwhile the Court granted Kalshi a 30-day extension to respond, moving its deadline from October 8 to November 9 and pushing any cert decision toward December or early 2027.
October 8, 2026 was the deadline for amicus briefs in New Jersey's petition for certiorari, docketed as Flaherty v. KalshiEX, LLC, and it produced a coordinated wave of filings urging the Court to grant review. The most prominent came from the National Football League, arguing that Kalshi's sports event contracts are gambling products subject to state regulation, not financial swaps under exclusive CFTC jurisdiction. A parallel brief came from 39 state attorneys general and DC, led by Ohio, and another from the Cabazon Band of Mission Indians — the tribe whose 1987 Supreme Court victory in California v. Cabazon Band established the framework that led Congress to pass the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. The gambling regulator associations IAGR and NAGRA had filed days earlier. The breadth of the coalition is an unusually strong signal to the Court that the question warrants resolution.
The NFL's argument goes to the heart of the swap-definition question. The league argued that a swap, in its traditional and statutory sense, hedges a preexisting financial risk, whereas a sports event contract exposes the buyer to an event outcome in which they have no underlying financial interest. A farmer hedging crop prices uses a swap to offset a risk they already bear; a person buying a contract on whether a team covers the spread is not hedging but taking on a new risk for its own sake — the definition of a wager. This is the same statutory argument the Ninth and Sixth Circuits accepted against Kalshi. The NFL framed its position carefully: it is not opposed to prediction markets as such, but believes that given the CFTC's resource constraints, regulation is better left to the states, and it raised specific concern about contracts vulnerable to manipulation and bets tied to injuries, officiating, and insider information.
The NFL's participation matters because of its commercial stake. The league cited $1.8 billion traded on football-linked contracts on the first Sunday of the NFL season — more than half of total platform volume that day. Football is the single largest driver of prediction market sports volume, so the NFL has the most to gain or lose from how these contracts are regulated. Its decision to side with the states, rather than partner commercially with the platforms as several other leagues have, makes the NFL the most powerful private opponent of the industry's current regulatory model. A professional league telling the Supreme Court that contracts on its own games are gambling is a potent counter to the platforms' claim that these are legitimate financial instruments.
While the pro-cert briefs accumulated, the Supreme Court granted Kalshi a 30-day extension to respond to New Jersey's petition, moving the deadline from October 8 to November 9. The extension, granted without comment, is routine, but it shifts the timeline: with Kalshi's response due November 9, the Court would not conference the petition until all papers are in, likely in late November or December. A cert decision is now most likely in December 2026 or early 2027, rather than the October-November window that earlier seemed possible. For a sector whose $40 billion valuations and IPO timelines partly depend on legal resolution, the extension pushes clarity further out, extending the period in which the platforms operate under unresolved circuit-split uncertainty across more than ten states.
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Recent updates
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Kalshi Partners With Signify to Police Athlete Harassment, Codifies Anti-Abuse Rule
Kalshi announced a partnership with Signify Group on October 15 to monitor social media for abuse and threats directed at athletes, coaches, and sports personnel across the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, and ATP Tour. Kalshi notified the CFTC of a new rule, dated October 13, codifying athlete harassment as an 'impermissible activity', with sanctions up to financial penalties and permanent account closure. The move follows a September appeal by five major leagues and their players' unions for lifetime bans on abusive bettors.
CFTC Moves to Classify Event Contracts as Swaps — Attempting to Settle the Core SCOTUS Question by Rule
The CFTC, led by Chairman Michael Selig, moved on October 9 to explicitly classify event contracts as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, placing prediction market contracts under federal swap regulation. The scope covers sports, political, cultural, and weather contracts, while a separate provision excludes casino-style gambling and sportsbook wagers. Selig said the aim is to remove 'any ambiguity.' The action targets the exact question dividing the federal circuits and now before the Supreme Court — whether event contracts are 'swaps.'