Kalshi builds a 41-state lobbying network amid prediction-market battles

Kalshi has built a state lobbying network spanning at least 41 states while directing political contributions toward attorneys general and governors, as its prediction-market business faces an escalating fight over whether federal derivatives rules override state gambling law.

Nearly all of Kalshi’s state lobbyists were hired after April, according to Truthout. Its presence reaches every state that has introduced prediction-market-specific legislation, Stateline reported, and its heaviest disclosed state lobbying is in California and New York.

The campaign sits alongside more than $300,000 in first-half contributions to the Republican and Democratic attorneys general associations: $147,500 to the Republican group and $170,000 to the Democratic group. Kalshi also gave $100,000 to the Republican Governors Association and $150,000 to its Democratic counterpart.

The company contributed to a super PAC backing Ken Paxton’s Texas Senate campaign and to campaigns for Charity Clark in Vermont, Dan Rayfield in Oregon and James Utheimer in Florida. Its co-founders, Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara, collectively gave about $1 million to Democratic and Republican recipients during the 2026 election cycle.

California is one focus. Kalshi spent $62,000 lobbying there in the first half of the year on three Assembly bills and contacts with the governor’s and attorney general’s offices concerning prediction markets. Redwood Public Affairs initially handled the work; on Aug. 12, Kalshi registered the Weideman Group, another California firm. Redwood’s co-founder and principal previously served as legislative director and chief of staff to Attorney General Rob Bonta.

In New York, Kalshi lifted its monthly payment to Brown & Weinraub Advisors to $25,000 from $10,000 for work on prediction-market legislation. It also agreed to pay the Mirram Group $25,000 a month through July 2027 and registered its head of state relations, Blake Bee, to lobby the governor’s office and Assembly through December. Together, those arrangements and Bee’s work are projected to cost more than $400,000 through July 2027.

That activity comes as New York pursues Kalshi in court. The state sued KalshiEX on July 31, alleging it operated an illegal, unlicensed gambling business, and seeks to halt its operations, recover alleged illegal gains, impose fines and secure restitution for users. The attorney general’s office said Kalshi lacked a state gaming licence and made markets available to users aged 18 to 20, below New York’s 21-year minimum for mobile sports betting.

Kalshi maintains that prediction markets are regulated financial contracts under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s authority, rather than state-regulated gambling. State lawmakers in both parties counter that the platforms evade gambling rules, taxes and consumer protections. In July, 44 state attorneys general told the CFTC that the markets represented a “new form of casino.”

The federal regulator has proposed rules that would clarify which event contracts could be deemed against the public interest and therefore barred from listing or clearing by CFTC-registered entities. Its proposal says Congress granted the agency exclusive jurisdiction over swaps and futures transactions, while acknowledging states’ competing view that prediction markets are gambling operations. Trading volume across CFTC-registered prediction markets exceeded $25 billion in 2025.

Kalshi’s state effort is substantially broader than Polymarket’s, which had no registered state lobbyists at the time. Kalshi, Polymarket and the Coalition for Prediction Markets together spent at least $3 million on lobbying and campaign contributions across federal and state levels in 2026.

Kalshi has also spent nearly $1 million on federal lobbying through June 30, including $240,000 paid to Miller Strategies and $120,000 reported for Lincoln Policy Group. It opened a Washington office in January, led by John Bivona, and disclosed federal lobbying on the Prediction Market Act, the Protect College Sports Act and the National Defense Authorization Act.

The legal issue remains unsettled. The CFTC has sued nine states that attempted to regulate prediction markets, while litigation over the reach of state law has produced split rulings in federal courts. Observers expect the Supreme Court ultimately to define the role states may play in regulating the industry.