A temporary restraining order from June is now a preliminary injunction. Kalshi cannot offer sports-event contracts to Michigan residents, and violations carry fines of $500,000 per day.
Judge Rosemarie E. Aquilina of the Ingham County Circuit Court issued the order. It requires Kalshi to maintain its block on Michigan residents trading sports-related event contracts until the case reaches a final ruling. In plain terms, the platform cannot let state residents bet on outcomes of sporting events through its prediction-market interface for the duration of the litigation.
The injunction goes further than a simple access restriction. Kalshi must use a third-party geolocation services provider licensed by the state’s gaming regulator to enforce the block. That is a specific technical provision with real compliance costs. Each day of noncompliance would cost $500,000, according to the filing.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued Kalshi in March. Her argument: the company violated the state’s sports betting law by enabling residents to “engage in sports betting under the guise of trading event contracts.” Her office announced the injunction on Wednesday. “Kalshi long attempted to pass itself off as a legitimate gaming operation in our state, and I am relieved that this order further protects Michigan residents from its predatory, unlicensed practices,” Nessel said in a statement.
Kalshi tried to move the case to federal court. The company has leaned on its status as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated exchange to argue that its contracts are legal commodities rather than sports bets. The Western District of Michigan granted the state’s motion to remand the lawsuit back to state court, leaving the case before Judge Aquilina. Kalshi has previously argued its contracts fall under the CFTC’s regulatory framework, not state gambling law, Decrypt reported.
The order reportedly characterizes Kalshi as a “sports betting operation masquerading as an investment opportunity,” according to Decrypt’s reading of the filing.
This dispute is one front in a widening state-by-state fight. More than a dozen states have taken enforcement action or filed lawsuits against Kalshi over its sports prediction markets. Connecticut sued the company last week to block sports contracts, escalating that state’s months-long legal fight. New Jersey had also pursued action, though the current status of its proceedings was not detailed in the sources reviewed.
The volume at stake is considerable. Kalshi recorded $38.67 billion in trading volume in August, compared with a combined $8.41 billion on Polymarket and Polymarket US, according to The Block’s data dashboard. The gap explains why state regulators have moved aggressively. Kalshi’s sports-event contracts, offered under its CFTC license, have drawn trading volume that dwarfs its prediction-market competitors.
What remains unclear is whether Kalshi will appeal. The Block said it reached out to the company for comment; no response was reported. Kalshi’s options include appealing the remand order that returned the case to state court, or challenging the injunction itself before the Michigan Court of Appeals.
The order stays in effect until a final judgment. For Kalshi, which has built its sports markets into a volume leader, that means continued exclusion from a state whose attorney general has shown no appetite for settling the question short of trial.
