Federal court shields Kalshi and Polymarket from Minnesota’s felony crackdown days before deadline

A federal judge has temporarily barred Minnesota from enforcing its new prediction-market felony law against federally regulated exchanges designated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as contract markets, including Kalshi and Polymarket US, days before the statute takes effect on Aug. 1.

Judge Katherine Menendez granted preliminary-injunction motions filed by the CFTC, KalshiEX and QCX, the registered entity doing business as Polymarket US. Her July 27 order prevents named Minnesota officials from enforcing Minn. Stat. § 609.7615 against CFTC-designated contract markets until the cases reach a final merits decision.

Menendez found the plaintiffs likely to prove that the Commodity Exchange Act expressly preempts part of Minnesota’s law. Federal law gives the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over swap transactions conducted on designated contract markets, and the swap definition can include event contracts whose outcomes have a reasonably connected potential financial, economic or commercial consequence. A trader’s potential profit alone is not enough.

The order does not treat every event contract as a swap. Menendez identified markets tied to a Senate election, the World Cup winner, a LeBron James signing and Strait of Hormuz traffic as likely swaps. She questioned a 20-point-lead market and said contracts on the winning Love Island USA couple or words used by World Cup announcers appeared unlikely to qualify. Any permanent injunction could therefore apply to fewer contracts.

Chapter 118 replaced the prediction-market provisions enacted earlier in Chapter 97. The law remains scheduled to take effect Aug. 1 for crimes committed on or after that date.

Under its core offense, creating or operating a covered prediction market, or intentionally facilitating it through specified listing, funds, settlement, counterparty or pricing activity, is a felony when done for consideration and as part of a business. Other provisions cover providers who knowingly supply data directly to a market, or geolocation, funds-transfer or payment services to one, to enable or settle prohibited wagers. A separate clause criminalizes advertising or marketing financial or technological products that promote prohibited transactions.

Because the order protects only CFTC-designated contract markets, it does not expressly shield customers, independent advertisers or outside service providers. The statute remains in force, and the court has not decided the plaintiffs’ implied-preemption or First Amendment claims.

Polymarket US welcomed the ruling and said it expected to keep serving Minnesota users. Attorney General Keith Ellison said the state disagreed and would continue defending the law as the record develops.

By contrast, a New York court denied Kalshi interim protection from existing state gambling enforcement earlier in July. Both cases remain open, and the opposite preliminary results do not settle how federal registration interacts with state gambling laws nationwide.

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