Michigan Judge Calls Kalshi's Sports Bets an "Exploitative Masquerade" — $120K a Day to Prove It 🧑‍⚖️

A Michigan judge issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking prediction market Kalshi from offering sports event contracts to state residents, with Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina warning that Kalshi would be fined $120,000 for each day it fails to honor the order's geolocation requirements. The order, sought by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, runs through July 13. In her ruling, Aquilina wrote that Michigan residents would suffer "immediate and irreparable harm" from "being exploited by Kalshi's sports betting operation masquerading as an investment opportunity," and that the platform risked inflicting "profound" harm on Michigan youth while "taking advantage of serious mental health issues" without providing the resources required of licensed gambling operators. As of Tuesday afternoon, Michigan users on social media reported being unable to access sports wagers on the Kalshi app, and a Kalshi spokesperson told Decrypt, "It's no surprise that we disagree with the state's decision and will fight it in court. In the meantime, we're implementing restrictions." Nessel said her office "remain[s] committed to enforcing a level playing field for all gambling platforms in Michigan and ensuring that companies cannot evade accountability or exploit consumers under the guise of a prediction market."

The action makes Michigan the second U.S. state to impose a court-ordered block on Kalshi's sports markets, after Nevada issued a temporary ban earlier in March; Massachusetts has also moved against the platform. More than a dozen states have taken prediction market operators to court, and on June 17 Kentucky sued five platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, accusing them of running unlicensed sports books. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued several states in response, arguing that federally regulated event contracts fall under its exclusive authority.

The crackdown lands during a record run for prediction market sports betting tied to the FIFA World Cup. Daily taker volume across the sector reached $713 million on June 20, according to Dune data, more than a week after the tournament kicked off on June 11. Monthly figures were higher still: sports contracts rose 40% to $9.5 billion on Kalshi and 175% to $5.3 billion on Polymarket, per Defirate data. A June 11 Bernstein report projected that the 2026 World Cup would generate more than $3 billion in incremental sports betting handle and between $5 billion and $10 billion in additional consumer prediction market volume, while Polymarket's World Cup Winner contract alone has crossed $3.5 billion in trading volume, according to platform data. A Bitget Wallet study of 857,000 users, shared with Cointelegraph, found roughly 60% of World Cup bettors on Polymarket were interacting with the blockchain for the first time during their prediction market entry.