Tarek Mansour, the chief executive of prediction market platform Kalshi, says pressure from the gambling industry helped drive New York’s legal action against the company, warning that any shutdown could anger a million customers in the state.
Kalshi is facing a lawsuit that could expose it to billions of dollars in liabilities. The State of New York filed its complaint on 31 July, arguing that contracts offered through the platform amount to gambling and that Kalshi has been operating as an unlicensed betting service.
Speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday, Mansour said the dispute was not simply a matter of whether state regulation conflicted with federal law. He argued that established gambling organisations were concerned prediction markets could take business away from traditional operators.
“You have an industry, the prediction market industry, that is disruptive, that is growing fast, consumers are adopting it, and it’s threatening a legacy incumbent industry that is unhappy about that. And that has played out over and over,” he said.
Mansour rejected suggestions that prediction markets operate in a legal “Wild West”. He said Kalshi is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and argued that the platform is already subject to federal oversight.
CFTC chairman Michael Selig has also criticised New York Attorney General Letitia James over the case. Selig said James was seeking “an unprecedented sudden shutdown of prediction markets nationwide.”
“The CFTC has already sued to stop this and will continue to defend its jurisdiction,” he said.
Mansour said Kalshi had been in discussions with New York authorities in an attempt to address their concerns. He added that the company had proposed a 10% tax, but that the offer had not resolved the dispute.
The New York complaint says event-market contracts should be treated as gambling because their results “are uncertain and outside the control of the bettor or hinge on a game of chance.” It also alleges that Kalshi made the service available to New York residents aged 18 to 20, in breach of state law.
New York is seeking restitution for losses suffered by residents using the platform. The lawsuit also calls for penalties of $100,000 for every illicit event market offered to New York citizens.
Mansour maintained that removing Kalshi from the state would have significant consequences for its users. “They’re gonna have a lot of pissed off New Yorkers,” he said, pointing to the company’s one million customers in New York.
He further claimed that New Yorkers had made almost $200m through Kalshi in 2026, arguing that such earnings would not have been possible through conventional gambling platforms.
The case comes as prediction markets expand their offering, allowing users around the world to trade contracts linked to the outcomes of events across a wide range of subjects. Kalshi’s position is that those markets are operating within the federal regulatory framework, while New York’s legal action treats them as gambling products subject to state licensing rules.
