New York Gaming Commission seeks court order over Kalshi subpoenas

New York’s State Gaming Commission has asked a Manhattan court to force Kalshi to comply with subpoenas seeking records relevant to its investigation. The commission said the material is needed to determine whether to seek civil penalties for alleged violations of state gambling law.

The verified petition, received by the state court system on Oct. 22, names Kalshi Inc. and KalshiEX LLC as respondents. The state Attorney General’s Office represents the commission in the proceeding, filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.

The subpoenas were issued on July 31 under Racing Law Section 104(7), with an Aug. 14 return date. They seek information about sports-event contracts offered in New York, access by people under 21, promotions describing the products as wagers or bets, and the companies’ ownership and corporate arrangements.

The commission alleged that Kalshi had operated for at least 18 months an enterprise designed to let people place wagers on sports and other matters in New York. It contends that the state’s Racing, Pari-Mutuel Wagering and Breeding Law requires a commission licence to offer sports wagering, and that Kalshi has not obtained one.

Those remain allegations in an untested petition. No ruling on the commission’s request to compel compliance had been reported as of Oct. 25. The commission argues that its investigation would be irreparably harmed if Kalshi is allowed to defy what it calls lawfully issued subpoenas.

The new state-court action follows a setback for Kalshi in its separate federal challenge to New York’s enforcement authority. On July 7, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied KalshiEX’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would have blocked enforcement of New York gambling laws against its sports-related contracts while the case proceeded.

That court concluded that the Commodity Exchange Act did not preempt New York gambling laws as applied to Kalshi’s sports-event contracts. It also dismissed the Gaming Commission from the federal case on Eleventh Amendment immunity grounds.

Kalshi maintains that its contracts are federally regulated financial products, rather than gambling products subject to state control. The company operates a prediction market in which users buy and sell event contracts, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has certified it as a designated contract market. Kalshi began listing self-certified sports-event contracts in January 2025, including positions on outcomes in college basketball and golf.

New York takes the opposing view: sports wagering may be offered, advertised or promoted in the state only by commission-licensed entities. The commission had directed Kalshi to cease and desist from operating or promoting an unlicensed mobile sports-wagering platform in October 2025. Courts elsewhere have reached differing outcomes when Kalshi has challenged state gaming enforcement, according to the July federal opinion.