Kalshi and Its Founders Charged in Utah; CFTC Seeks Halt

Utah filed criminal gambling charges against Kalshi and co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara on October 28, and the CFTC has asked a federal judge in Salt Lake City to make Utah drop or pause them. Judge Robert J. Shelby has not ruled; on October 30 he set an in-person conference on the request for November 6, 2026.

The Deseret News and the Associated Press both report that Utah is the second state to criminally charge Kalshi, after Arizona in March. According to both outlets, a federal judge has put Arizona's prosecution on hold, and the Deseret News says Arizona is appealing. The CFTC wants the same result in Utah, but it is asking the judge who ruled against Kalshi in August. As of the October 30 order, the court had not granted the motion, so the criminal case stands for now.

What is Kalshi charged with in Utah?

The charges were filed on October 28 in Third District Court in Salt Lake County. RG.org says the charging document lists 14 counts, and the Deseret News gives the same breakdown by level:

The defendants are KalshiEX LLC, CEO Tarek Mansour and COO Luana Lopes Lara. The federal docket confirms that three charging documents exist. The CFTC attached them to its motion as an "Information" against each defendant, all dated October 28, 2026, in the Third Judicial District, Salt Lake County.

According to both reports, the case rests on an undercover Kalshi account that a state investigator, Scott Eggerman, opened on September 13 and used to place 12 bets, paying a fee of 3 to 78 cents on each. RG.org adds that he used a Utah address, phone number and debit card, and that the wagers ran from $4 to $30 between September 13 and September 24. The Deseret News quotes the charges on one of those bets: a $5.00 spread wager that the University of Utah would beat Utah State by more than 27.5 points. Utah won by 36, and he won $4.13.

These are allegations, and no court has ruled on them. We could not read the charging document itself. RG.org links it on the Utah Attorney General's site, but that address returned a 404 error when we tried it on October 30, and the office's newsroom has no release on the charges. The count breakdown above therefore comes from the two news reports. The Associated Press, via NBC News, describes the charges more loosely, as "13 counts of violating the state's prohibition on gambling" plus a profiting charge.

Kalshi said in a statement to the Deseret News: "This is a crazy overreach; Utah is clearly playing politics. We look forward to putting a stop to this in court, just like we did in Arizona."

What is the CFTC asking the federal court to do?

The CFTC wants the court to stop the prosecution. The United States and the CFTC sued the State of Utah and Attorney General Derek Brown on October 26 (United States v. State of Utah, No. 2:26-cv-01055). At that point the target was Utah's October 20 civil suit against Kalshi and Susquehanna, which the complaint calls an intrusion on the CFTC's "exclusive jurisdiction" over contracts traded on federally designated exchanges.

The criminal charges came two days later. On October 29 the federal plaintiffs filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, attaching all three charging documents. Their proposed order is broad. It would bar Utah from "pursuing criminal or civil enforcement actions related to event contracts listed on CFTC-regulated DCMs". It would also cover "subpoena process, or other compulsory investigative process", and it would direct Utah "to either dismiss any applicable enforcement actions or seek stays in those cases".

Judge Shelby has not ruled on it. His October 30 order sets an "in-person status and scheduling conference on the Motion and Complaint" for Friday, November 6, 2026, at 1:00 PM in Courtroom 3.100. He also told the federal plaintiffs to serve Utah with the order, the motion and the complaint by 5:00 PM on November 3, "in a manner that provides actual notice", and to file proof of service by November 4. The order neither grants nor denies the motion.

Has Judge Shelby already ruled against Kalshi?

Shelby has already decided the core question once. In Kalshi's own suit in August, according to the Utah Attorney General's announcement, he "held that federal commodities law does not override Utah's power to ban gambling within its borders." The CFTC now makes a similar preemption argument, this time as a plaintiff in its own right. Its complaint says it has brought preemption actions against nine other states and won preliminary injunctions in Arizona, Illinois and Minnesota. That is the agency's own account of its record. The Utah suit was also filed as related to a separate case, North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc. v. Brown, No. 26-cv-1056, brought by the exchange that trades as OG.com Prediction Markets, which is also suing Missouri over its cease-and-desist letters.

What does this mean for players in Utah?

For now, Utah's law applies and it is being enforced. In a statement quoted by the Deseret News and the AP, Brown said: "Gambling is illegal in Utah, whether you place the bet, run the game, or promote it." Neither report says any bettor is under investigation. The charges named so far are against the company and its executives. Brown told the Deseret News that "Kalshi kept taking bets from Utahns anyway" after the August ruling. That is the state's allegation, and we could not confirm independently whether Kalshi still takes trades from Utah addresses.

Sweepstakes players should pay attention to how this turns out. The argument that a federal licence displaces a state gambling ban is the one being tested here, and Utah is a state where sweepstakes brands already have little room under our state-by-state legality guide. If you are in Utah, the brands on our best sweepstakes casinos list and the state availability matrix show who actually serves your address. That is a different question from who says they are entitled to.

Sources & documents

• United States v. State of Utah, No. 2:26-cv-01055 (D. Utah), docket, read October 30, 2026, for the filing dates, the reassignment to Judge Shelby and the exhibit list naming the three October 28 charging documents
• Complaint, October 26, 2026 (PDF), 33 pages, for the preemption claim and the CFTC's list of other state actions
• Notice of related action, October 27, 2026 (PDF), naming the OG.com case
• Proposed temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (PDF), for the dismiss-or-stay wording
• Order setting status and scheduling conference, October 30, 2026 (PDF), for the November 6 date and the service deadlines
• CFTC press release 9315-26, October 27, 2026
• Utah Attorney General: Utah sues Kalshi, October 20, 2026 and Utah defeats Kalshi in federal court, August 4, 2026
• Deseret News, October 28, 2026, RG.org, October 30, 2026 and NBC News (AP), October 29, 2026, for the charge details and statements. The charging document linked from the Attorney General's site returned a 404 error on October 30.

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