- A King County judge ordered Kalshi to stop offering sports event contracts to anyone in Washington.
- Kalshi must run IP- and residency-based geofencing by Aug. 19 and a GeoComply system by Sept. 2.
- Missing the Sept. 2 deadline costs $120,000 a day unless Kalshi files a sworn affidavit explaining the delay.
- Commodities, climate, economics and finance contracts stay available to Washington traders under the order.
SEATTLE – KalshiEX must stop offering sports event contracts to anyone in Washington under an order King County Superior Court Judge John F. McHale signed Wednesday. The exchange has until Aug. 19 to block the state by IP address and residency, and until Sept. 2 to add GeoComply screening or face $120,000 a day.
Six Categories Go Dark, Four Stay Open
The amended preliminary injunction in State of Washington v. KalshiEX LLC, No. 26-2-10264-3 SEA, is an amended and updated version of the preliminary injunction McHale granted in July, entered after oral argument on July 10.
Its operative paragraph orders Kalshi to “cease marketing, advertising, promoting, conducting, operating, facilitating, distributing, offering, or accepting event contracts, or other contracts, instruments, or products in Washington, related to sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech and science, or mentions,” then names the six matching tabs on the platform.
Four categories are expressly excluded. Commodities, Climate, Economics and Finance keep trading, and the order states Kalshi will not prohibit users from exiting positions they already hold.
The advertising ban covers local marketing aimed at Washington or its residents, and requires Kalshi to make good-faith efforts to exclude the state from nationwide campaigns where that is technologically feasible.
Sports is the part of the order that reaches a market Washington already regulates. The state effectively banned online gambling in 2006 and opened one exception in 2020 for wagering on tribal land under compact, the court’s findings state, which leaves Washington sports betting to retail books at tribal casinos.
The court found Kalshi engages in unlicensed online sports wagering and bookmaking in the state. Those contracts are the piece of the platform that competes with legal sports betting in states that license sportsbooks.
Two Deadlines, Then $120,000 A Day
Kalshi has until Aug. 19 to stand up geofencing keyed to IP address and residency, and until Sept. 2 to add the multi-source solution GeoComply is to supply, built to stop anyone inside Washington from buying a barred contract.
If the GeoComply work is not finished by Sept. 2, the order gives Kalshi a choice. It either pays the state $120,000 each day until implementation is complete, or submits a sworn affidavit from a Kalshi or GeoComply representative explaining why the work remains incomplete. The state then gets an opportunity to be heard, and only if the court finds Kalshi failed to act with sufficient diligence may penalties follow, in an amount the court sets.
That is the same structure Nevada obtained by stipulation in July, down to the daily figure and the affidavit that can displace it. The order also requires Kalshi to give Washington the same implementation information and updates it gives Michigan and Nevada, and to let state counsel join its discussions with GeoComply.
Money Frozen In Place, Records Held
Kalshi must maintain the status quo on funds it took as transaction fees from consumers identified or self-reported as Washingtonians, for activity the order prohibits. Those consumers may still close or deactivate accounts and withdraw their balances.
The state reserved the right to seek recovery of fees and losses incurred by Washington consumers on or after Sept. 2, which puts a price on missing the geofencing date beyond the daily penalty. Kalshi must also preserve every record reasonably related to Washington consumers until the court says otherwise, including logs, communications, geolocation determinations and marketing and targeting data.
The Court Called The Marketing Deceptive
Offering the contracts and advertising them breaks the Consumer Protection Act at RCW 19.86.020, McHale concluded, an unfair or deceptive practice in trade or commerce. As evidence the order cites Kalshi’s own pitch to Washington consumers, that they could “bet on the NFL even though [they] live in Washington.”
Whether a contract is a wager is the question running through every state case against prediction market apps, and the order resolves it on the platform’s mechanics. Users buy a yes-or-no position, winners receive a payout, losers forfeit what they staked and Kalshi collects a transaction fee on each trade, the findings state. Each bet risks money, relies in part on chance and promises a payout, which places it inside the Gambling Act at Chapter 9.46 of the Revised Code of Washington.
The court also found Kalshi is not licensed by the Washington State Gambling Commission to conduct online gambling and not registered to do business in the state, and that it willfully ignored the commission’s Dec. 9, 2025 notice that events-based contracts are not authorized in Washington.
“Kalshi has gotten rich promoting wagers on sports, elections, natural disasters, events related to the Iran War, and more,” Attorney General Nick Brown said in the announcement. “Under this order, Kalshi is banned from offering wagers on most of those topics in Washington.”
The finding is preliminary rather than final, made on a showing that the state is likely to succeed on the merits, and the case continues toward trial. McHale required no bond from the state, under CR 65(c) and RCW 4.92.080.
Kalshi is appealing, and the Washington Court of Appeals has already denied its request to stay the injunction, according to the attorney general’s office. The order runs on its own clock in the meantime, and the exchange’s sports contracts have to be walled off from Washington by Aug. 19.
