On 2 September 2026, lawyers for New Jersey walked a petition into the US Supreme Court. The docket picked it up six days later as No. 26-299, Flaherty v. KalshiEX, LLC. The question it puts to the justices is narrow and specific. Whether the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act preempted States from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
That is the exact wording. And it is the whole fight.
Before anything else, the status. As of 23 October 2026, the Supreme Court has not decided whether to hear the case. Kalshi's time to respond to the petition was extended to 9 November 2026, and the docket shows no action from the Court on whether to grant or deny review. The case is in front of the justices as a request, not as an appeal they have accepted. That distinction matters, because a lot of coverage treats a filed petition as if the Court is already weighing the merits. It is not.
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What New Jersey is actually asking
Strip the legalese and the petition poses a single question: does federal commodities law, specifically the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, stop a state from applying its own gambling rules to sports-related event contracts that happen to be offered on a CFTC-registered exchange?
The petitioners are Mary Jo Flaherty, Interim Director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, and Jennifer Davenport, Attorney General of New Jersey. Their argument, in essence, is that a state's power to police sports betting inside its own borders should not evaporate the moment a product is wrapped as a federally-regulated contract. The Third Circuit disagreed with them in April. Now they want the Supreme Court to look again.
The case began on prosaic ground. New Jersey sent Kalshi a cease-and-desist letter over its sports-related event contracts. Kalshi sued in the District of New Jersey. Judge Edward S. Kiel granted a preliminary injunction blocking the state from enforcing. New Jersey appealed. The Third Circuit affirmed. New Jersey is now one step further up.
The Third Circuit opinion, in brief
The ruling New Jersey wants reversed came down on 6 April 2026, in KalshiEX, LLC v. Flaherty, No. 25-1922. The panel comprised Chief Judge Chagares and Judges Porter and Roth. Judge Porter wrote for the court. Judge Roth dissented.
The majority upheld Judge Kiel's preliminary injunction because Kalshi had shown a reasonable chance of success on its argument that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts otherwise applicable New Jersey law. A preliminary injunction is not a final ruling on the merits. It is a holding pattern. The Third Circuit was saying that Kalshi's preemption argument was strong enough to keep New Jersey off its back while the full litigation proceeds, not that New Jersey had definitively lost on the law.
Judge Roth's dissent is part of New Jersey's case, and its petition relies on it. The bigger point is that the federal appeals courts now disagree. New Jersey's petition, filed on 2 September, already argued that the Third Circuit's ruling conflicts with the Ninth Circuit's decision of 28 August 2026 in Kalshi's Nevada case (KalshiEX v. Assad, No. 25-7516), which held that Kalshi was unlikely to show that federal law preempts Nevada's gaming law.
Since then a third appeals court has ruled. On 25 September 2026 the Sixth Circuit, deciding Kalshi's Ohio and Tennessee cases together (KalshiEX v. Schuler and KalshiEX v. Orgel, Nos. 26-3196/5235), held that Kalshi had not shown its sports contracts are swaps under federal commodity law and, in the alternative, that federal law does not preempt either state's gambling laws. It upheld Ohio's refusal of a preliminary injunction and set aside the one Kalshi had won in Tennessee. Kalshi asked the full Sixth Circuit to rehear the case on 9 October. The Sixth Circuit's opinion itself notes that the Third and Ninth Circuits reached opposite results on substantially the same question.
A split between federal appeals courts is a classic reason for the Supreme Court to take a case. The Court's own Rule 10(a) lists a court of appeals decision "in conflict with the decision of another United States court of appeals on the same important matter" among the reasons it considers in granting review.
What a cert petition is, and is not
Filing a petition for a writ of certiorari is a request. The Supreme Court receives thousands each year and takes a small fraction. The fact that New Jersey has filed one does not mean the case is going anywhere specific; it means the Court now has the paperwork.
Kalshi's response is due 9 November 2026. After the response lands, the petition will be scheduled for conference, where the justices decide whether to grant review. That could happen quickly or slowly. The docket is the only place where the honest answer lives, and the honest answer is that nothing has been decided.
So be careful with headlines that say the case "is going" to the Supreme Court.
Who else has filed, and why that is worth flagging
The petition has attracted a crowd. Between 22 September and 8 October 2026, amicus briefs were filed by, among others, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, the International Association of Gaming Regulators, the National Football League, the American Gaming Association, and former CFTC chairman Gary Gensler.
On 7 October 2026, Ohio and 38 other states plus the District of Columbia filed a joint amicus brief in support of New Jersey.
The sheer volume of filings is itself a signal. Amicus briefs at the cert stage are a way of telling the Court that a case matters beyond its named parties, and when forty attorneys general sign one document, that message is unusually loud. Whether it persuades four justices to vote for review is a separate question, and not one anyone outside the Court can answer.
What this means for Kalshi users in New Jersey
For someone in New Jersey who holds a Kalshi account, the practical answer right now is simple. Kalshi continues to operate in the state under the Third Circuit's affirmed preliminary injunction. That injunction is what is actually keeping New Jersey's enforcement at bay, and nothing about the pending Supreme Court petition changes it.
If the Supreme Court denies review, the Third Circuit ruling stands and the preliminary injunction continues to govern while the underlying litigation plays out in the District Court. If the Court grants review, the case moves to full briefing and argument, which takes months, and the injunction remains in place unless something unusual happens. Either way, the status quo for New Jersey users is the status quo. For a broader map of where Kalshi can and cannot operate, our guide to Kalshi's state-by-state legality and why CFTC regulation matters walks through the structural reasons the state-federal fight keeps erupting.
The wider point is that the same preemption question keeps surfacing in different courtrooms with different panels reaching different conclusions. New Jersey lost in the District Court, where Kalshi won a preliminary injunction, and lost again at the Third Circuit. Ohio and Tennessee have fared differently: the Sixth Circuit ruled against Kalshi in both, as the Ninth Circuit did in Nevada. The Supreme Court is being asked to settle a question that lower courts are not settling for themselves.
Why this question keeps coming back
There is a reason the preemption fight will not die. CFTC-registered exchanges are federal creatures. State gambling regulators are, by design, local actors with jurisdiction over conduct inside their borders. When a product looks like a sports bet to a gaming regulator and like a financial contract to a federal commodities regulator, both sides have genuine statutory authority to point to.
That is the architecture of the dispute. Our broader explainers on whether prediction markets are legal in the US and on whether prediction markets are gambling under UK and US law walk through the structural tension in more detail. The Flaherty petition is the sharpest version of that tension yet to reach the Supreme Court, but it is not the first and will not be the last attempt to force a definitive answer.
Whether that answer comes from this petition or a future one is up to the justices.
The honest reader takeaway
There are a lot of confident predictions floating around about what the Supreme Court will do with the Kalshi case. Ignore most of them. The Court has not spoken. Kalshi has not even filed its response. The docket, which is the only authoritative source, says the petition is pending and nothing more.
What is known is this. New Jersey has asked the Court to decide a clean preemption question. The Third Circuit ruled against New Jersey, with one judge in dissent, and the Sixth and Ninth Circuits have since ruled against Kalshi on the same preemption question. A large coalition of states and industry bodies has weighed in. Kalshi continues to operate in New Jersey under the injunction. Everything beyond that is forecast, and forecasts about Supreme Court behaviour are notoriously bad.
iPredicta is a UK-based prediction markets discovery platform. We track the questions traders are pricing on Polymarket, Kalshi and other venues, and we write explainers like this one for readers trying to understand the regulatory and market context behind those prices. The Kalshi case will keep moving. We will keep reading the docket.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Supreme Court going to hear the Kalshi New Jersey case?
Nobody knows yet, and anyone saying otherwise is guessing. As of 23 October 2026, New Jersey's petition for a writ of certiorari in Flaherty v. KalshiEX, LLC, docketed as No. 26-299, is pending. Kalshi's response is not due until 9 November 2026. The Supreme Court has issued no decision on whether to grant review. A filed petition is a request, not an appeal the Court has agreed to hear, and the vast majority of petitions each term are denied. Only once Kalshi has responded will the petition be scheduled for conference, after which the justices decide whether to take it up. The docket is the only authoritative source, and it currently shows nothing more than a pending request.
What is the exact question New Jersey is asking the Supreme Court?
The petition poses a single question, phrased this way: whether the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act preempted States from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In plain English, New Jersey is asking whether federal commodities law blocks a state from applying its own gambling rules to sports-related event contracts traded on a CFTC-registered exchange like Kalshi. The petitioners are Mary Jo Flaherty, Interim Director of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, and Jennifer Davenport, Attorney General of New Jersey. Their argument is that state authority over sports betting inside state borders should survive a product being wrapped as a federally-regulated contract.
What did the Third Circuit actually decide?
The Third Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction that protects Kalshi from New Jersey enforcement while the underlying case continues. The ruling in KalshiEX, LLC v. Flaherty, No. 25-1922, was argued on 10 September 2025 and decided on 6 April 2026. The panel comprised Chief Judge Chagares and Judges Porter and Roth. Judge Porter wrote for the court. Judge Roth dissented. The majority upheld Judge Edward S. Kiel's District Court injunction because Kalshi had shown a reasonable chance of success on its argument that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts otherwise applicable New Jersey law. That is a holding on the strength of Kalshi's preemption argument for injunction purposes, not a final merits ruling in the broader litigation.
Can I still trade sports contracts on Kalshi from New Jersey?
Yes, Kalshi continues to operate in New Jersey under the Third Circuit's affirmed preliminary injunction. That injunction is what prevents New Jersey from enforcing against Kalshi while the case continues, and the pending Supreme Court petition does not change its status. If the Court denies review, the Third Circuit ruling stands and the injunction continues to govern. If the Court grants review, the case proceeds to full briefing and argument, which takes months, and the injunction typically remains in place during that process. For a wider look at where Kalshi can and cannot be used across the country, iPredicta's guide to Kalshi's state-by-state legality covers the structural reasons the state-federal conflict keeps producing different outcomes in different courts.
Who filed amicus briefs in the Supreme Court petition, and what does that signal?
A notably large and varied group filed amicus briefs between 22 September and 8 October 2026. On 7 October, Ohio, 38 other states and the District of Columbia filed a joint brief in support of New Jersey. Other filers across the window include the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States, the International Association of Gaming Regulators, the National Football League, the American Gaming Association, and former CFTC chairman Gary Gensler. The volume and range of filings is itself a signal that the case matters well beyond the named parties, and that is often part of the pitch at the cert stage. Whether that persuades enough justices to vote for review is a separate question, and one that cannot be answered from outside the Court.