Nevada seeks $120,000-a-day penalties from Kalshi over geofencing dispute

Nevada’s Gaming Control Board asked a court to impose penalties of $120,000 a day on Kalshi, saying the company had not complied with a judge’s order to stop offering sports, election and entertainment contracts in the state by the Aug. 12 deadline.

The board said Kalshi had “profited enormously from its continued violations of Nevada law.” As covered in April, a Nevada judge had already barred Kalshi from offering those contracts without a gaming licence.

The regulator said state investigators were still able to buy multiple event contracts from Nevada on mobile phones, and that none of those trades should have been possible under the court order. A filing seen by Reuters said investigators completed nine trades on Kalshi’s mobile app while connected to cellular networks in Nevada, and that the activity came a day after the deadline for a complete geofencing solution.

Kalshi pushed back sharply. Its lawyers said the investigators misrepresented their residences and, in at least one case, worked around the company’s blocking measures. Kalshi also said it had hired GeoComply, a Nevada-licensed technology company, after agreeing in July to use a “robust, multi-source geofencing solution” to keep people within Nevada from entering the site.

Rick Heaslip, Kalshi’s general counsel, called the control board’s lawsuit “a vindictive waste of taxpayer dollars at the bidding of casinos.” He said the company had “gone above and beyond to geofence Nevada as requested,” and that it had updated the state throughout.

The dispute is the latest stage in a fight that began in 2025. Nevada’s timeline says it issued a cease-and-desist letter to Kalshi on Mar. 4, 2025, after which Kalshi sued in federal court on Mar. 28. A federal district court granted Kalshi a preliminary injunction on Apr. 9, 2025.

The conflict intensified this year. Nevada filed an enforcement action against Kalshi on Feb. 17, a state court issued a temporary restraining order on Mar. 20, and another state court enjoined Kalshi from offering prohibited event contracts on Apr. 3. The board then moved on June 4 to hold Kalshi in contempt for violating that injunction.

The state, Kalshi and two other prediction markets are still awaiting a ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that could uphold the regulator’s effort to ban the companies from Nevada.