The last gambling lawsuit of 2025 is a doozy — a federal RICO class action vs. Stake and rapper Drake for promoting an illegal online gambling site under the guise of a fake sweepstakes. Drake is accused of using the platform to artificially inflate play counts of his music. "Drake, Ross, and Nguyen have also made use of Stake . . . to directly transfer money between and among themselves, using Stake’s 'Tipping' program – an unlimited and wholly unregulated money transmitter that appears to exist outside the oversight of any financial regulator."

Nevada: "Nothing in the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) shows that Congress intended to take away the States’ and Indian Tribes’ historic powers to regulate gambling and give them all to the CFTC." Nevada: "Courts presume that Congress did not preempt state law, 'particularly' in cases involving 'a field which the States have traditionally occupied.' Gaming is such a field."

NEW: Kalshi has been hit with a nationwide class action lawsuit in the SDNY for operating an illegal online sports betting platform and for "duping" customers into believing that they are legally gambling against other consumers when they are actually gambling against the house.
"Consumers on Kalshi do not only bet against each other—they also bet against the House. Kalshi operates institutional market makers, which also gamble against the consumer."

News: Kalshi files federal lawsuit against New York State after receiving cease-and-desist letter from @NYSGamingComm on Friday evening and will soon be filing a motion for preliminary injunction to prevent NYS from from enforcing its gambling laws vs. Kalshi. (h/t @akhoya87) "Earlier this year, federal courts in Nevada and New Jersey granted Kalshi preliminary injunctions to prevent similar state overreach."

No mention of the Crypto dot com ruling or Nevada's motion to dissolve Kalshi's preliminary injunction (set for hearing on Nov. 14th).

There is another fundamental flaw in Kalshi's legal argument.

Kalshi's 'sports-outcome' event contracts may not qualify as an "excluded commodity" for purposes of triggering the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction.

Here's why:

1) Under the Commodity Exchange Act (the CEA), "event contracts" are defined as "agreements contracts, transactions, or swaps in excluded commodities."

2) In other words, "event contracts" are subject to regulation under the CEA as an "excluded commodity."

3) What is an "excluded commodity"?

4) The CEA defines "excluded commodity" as an "occurrence, extent of an occurrence, or contingency" that is “beyond the control of the parties to the relevant contract" and "associated with a financial, economic, or commercial consequence."

5) The key words are "associated with a financial, economic, or commercial consequence."

6) So, are the outcomes of sporting events "associated with a financial, economic, or commercial consequence"?

7) Kalshi previously took the position that they are not.

8) In a brief filed on November 15, 2024 with the D.C. Circuit, Kalshi explained that "contracts relating to games—again, activities conducted for diversion or amusement—are unlikely to serve any ‘commercial or hedging interest.’” (📸)

9) During the May 30, 2024 oral argument in its lawsuit with the CFTC, Kalshi asserted that contracts relating to "games" such as "football, horseracing and golf" have "no economic significance," adding that "it's probably not the type of contracts that we want to be listed on an exchange, because they don't have any real economic value."

10) Kalshi has since reversed field.

11) In a Reply Brief filed earlier this week, Kalshi argued that the "sporting events" for which if offers event contracts "have obvious financial implications," pointing to Rory Mcllroy's sudden-death playoff win in the 2025 Masters which resulted in increased television viewership—reportedly a 33% increase over the prior year—"with enormous financial consequence for CBS and its advertisers."

12) But it's not the sporting event itself which is the measuring stick. The fact that broadcast rights associated with major sporting events are financially consequential does not, a fortiori, mean that the “outcome” of the sporting event is “associated with” a financial, economic, or commercial consequence.

13) Otherwise, as incoming CFTC Chairman Brian Quintenz has opined, “since practically any event has at least a minimal financial, commercial, or economic consequence, ALL events are commodities."

14) The more salient question —and the one actually raised by the definition of "excluded commodity"— is whether the "OUTCOME" of the event is "ASSOCIATED WITH" a "financial, economic, or commercial consequence"?

15) In other words, the relevant inquiry is whether Rory Mcllroy winning the Masters is "associated with" (i.e., connected to) financial consequences, not whether CBS makes money from streaming the event, as the Casino Association of New Jersey explained in an amicus brief filed last week.

16) The answer to that question would appear to be "no" — that is, other than to the competitors themselves (such as Mr. Mcllroy, who earned $4.2 million for winning the Masters).

17) So an “excluded commodity” could be yes/no for Las Vegas to host the 2029 Super Bowl, but not the outcome of the game.

18) It is ironic that Kalshi urged a narrow definition of “gaming” in its lawsuit against the CFTC, but is now urging a broad definition of “economic consequence.” 19) Now contrast that with the “examples” of “events” that the CFTC lists on its website as illustrative of an “event contract”:

“Macroeconomic indicators, corporate earnings, level of snowfall, or dollar value of damages caused by a hurricane.”

Key distinction = macroeconomic