Kalshi’s trademark bid undermines its anti-gambling stance
Table of contents
- Kalshi’s November 2025 USPTO application to trademark the term “prediction market” included language tied to bookmaking services and sports betting tournaments.
- The United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected the initial request, and Kalshi was granted a three-month extension in March 2026 to refile.
- The filing surfaces as Kalshi fights legal battles in more than a dozen states, including criminal charges in Arizona filed in March 2026.
A federal trademark application has placed Kalshi in a difficult position, revealing that the prediction market operator described its own product using gambling industry classifications, the very label it has fought to avoid in courtrooms and legislatures across the United States.
When Kalshi filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on 10 November 2025 to trademark the term “prediction market,” it listed its product as being associated with “bookmaking services, namely, providing of information related to sports betting; organising, arranging, conducting sports betting and gambling tournaments, competitions and contests,” alongside more conventional categories including financial trading software, financial exchange services and communication services.
A broad definition or a total contradiction?
The company has offered an explanation. Elisabeth Diana, spokesperson for Kalshi, said in a statement that the intent of the application was to cover all bases, not to explicitly define the business.
“This is particularly important as companies in adjacent categories look to expand into prediction markets. A broader filing allows us to meaningfully protect the space and ensure that key terms are not used in ways that could blur distinctions between different products.”
Legal observers are not convinced the rationale holds. The USPTO’s own rules require that applications accurately reflect a company’s actual business activities, and inaccurate entries are considered unacceptable.
The trademark filing does not prove Kalshi is legally a gambling operation, but it provides state regulators and legislators with a compelling piece of evidence to argue that the company itself, in some contexts, views its product through a gambling lens.
The USPTO ultimately rejected Kalshi’s initial trademark request, finding that “prediction market” merely described a feature or function of the platform’s services rather than a distinctive mark. Kalshi’s subsequent request for a three-month extension to refile was approved in March 2026.
Arizona files criminal charges
The trademark story emerges against a backdrop of intensifying legal conflict.
On 17 March 2026, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed criminal charges against KalshiEX LLC in Maricopa County Superior Court, marking the first criminal prosecution ever brought against a CFTC-registered prediction market operator in the United States.
The 20-count criminal information alleges that Kalshi accepted bets from Arizona residents on professional and college sporting events, individual player performance and election outcomes, in violation of state law.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown separately filed a civil lawsuit against Kalshi on 27 March 2026, alleging its event-based contracts constitute illegal gambling under state law.
The CTFC hits back
Kalshi has been lobbying for its operations to be categorised as financial rather than as gambling, arguing it should remain under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which currently regulates prediction markets as a form of financial derivative.
That position allows Kalshi and others to offer trading across state lines without obtaining traditional state gaming licences. The CFTC has backed Kalshi’s federal preemption argument, filing lawsuits on 2 April 2026 against Connecticut, Arizona and Illinois, challenging those states’ enforcement actions against prediction market operators.
Kalshi’s revenue run rate currently stands at approximately $1.5bn annually. The company has active legal disputes in Nevada, Massachusetts, Washington, Michigan and Arizona, with growing scrutiny from California. Its March Madness trading volume and recent Brazil expansion clearly show its commercial ambition even as legal headwinds intensify.
The trademark filing will not determine the outcome of any courtroom battle. At a moment when courts across the country are split on the federal preemption question, it hands opposing counsel a document that directly complicates Kalshi’s core argument, and it is now part of the public record in every jurisdiction where that argument will be tested.
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