Utah files 13 felony counts against Kalshi and its co-founders after an undercover investigator bet on football games

Utah has turned its fight with Kalshi into a criminal case. Attorney General Derek Brown filed charges on Wednesday in state court in Salt Lake City against the prediction market and its co-founders, CEO Tarek Mansour and COO Luana Lopes Lara, according to the Deseret News and The Block. The charges are one count of pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony; 12 counts of online gambling promotion, third-degree felonies; and one count of gambling promotion, a class A misdemeanor.

The case rests on an undercover account a state investigator opened on September 13 with a Utah address and bank account. Over 11 days he placed about a dozen bets on NFL, MLB and college football games and a Real Salt Lake soccer match, and the charges say Kalshi took fees of 3 to 78 cents per trade. "Gambling is illegal in Utah, whether you place the bet, run the game, or promote it," Brown said.

The charges follow a civil suit Utah filed against Kalshi the week before, and come a day after the CFTC sued Utah, arguing federal law gives it sole oversight of these markets. Kalshi spokespeople called the charges an overreach and said no single state should have a veto over a federally regulated exchange. Arizona brought the first such criminal case in March; a federal judge blocked it and Arizona is appealing.