In the weeks since, the fight sharpened, and the "prospect of a circuit split" above is no longer hypothetical. In July 2026, a federal district judge in New York (KalshiEX LLC v. Williams, S.D.N.Y., Judge Analisa Torres) denied Kalshi a preliminary injunction and held that the Commodity Exchange Act does not preempt New York's gambling law — the direct counterweight to the Third Circuit's New Jersey ruling, and the industry's most consequential loss so far. Kalshi appealed to the Second Circuit the same day. Parallel splits are now playing out inside single circuits: the Sixth Circuit has consolidated a pro-Kalshi Tennessee case against an anti-Kalshi Ohio case for argument in late July, and the Ninth Circuit is juggling unresolved fights across Nevada, Washington, Arizona, and California tribal lands.

Two other developments cut in opposite directions. Minnesota became the first state to pass a statutory ban on prediction-market platforms, signed in May 2026 and set to take effect August 1 — but a federal judge preliminarily blocked it in late July 2026, so the ban is enjoined, not in force. North Carolina went the other way entirely, enacting a July 2026 law that recognizes the CFTC's authority and taxes trading-fee revenue rather than banning the platforms.

Zoom into the actual docket list and it turns granular and contradictory: the same company can operate freely in one state, be blocked by a judge in the next, and face a fresh lawsuit in a third. Read this as a dated snapshot: nearly every case below is preliminary and under appeal, and it changes week to week. This is informational, not legal advice — always verify a venue's current, location-specific eligibility before relying on it.