Kalshi Pushes Back Against Nevada Over Geolocation Testing Methods

Nevada Gaming Control Board investigators say they got around Kalshi’s location checks and completed nine trades on the company’s app while sitting inside Nevada, connected to local cell networks. The board says this happened after August 12, the date Kalshi was supposed to have fixed the problem.

Kalshi Pushes Back

Kalshi attorney Andrew Porter called the board’s version of events a distorted account and raised doubts about how investigators ran their test. He claimed NGCB staff lied about where they actually were when they logged into Kalshi, though he stopped short of naming which federal law he thinks that broke.

Porter framed the whole episode as the state singling out one company for punishment, simply because that company pushed back instead of rolling over.

Regulator Stands Firm

Nevada’s board isn’t backing down. A spokesperson said Kalshi’s claims don’t hold up and don’t change the basic fact that the company blew past its deadline. The board added that Kalshi’s repeated failures gave it no other option but to flag the noncompliance to the court.

Kalshi Defends Its Fixes

Rick Heaslip, who serves as Kalshi’s general counsel and chief regulatory officer, said the company put real effort into keeping Nevada residents off the platform. That included bringing in GeoComply, a specialist in the field, after Kalshi had already sunk $190,000 into building its own tool, one Nevada regulators later said wasn’t good enough.

Heaslip said Kalshi did more than what was asked, brought on a vendor the state itself had approved, and gave regulators updates the whole way through, only to hear nothing back. He argued that instead of working with Kalshi, investigators faked their location to dig up a technicality and manufacture a fresh complaint.

What Comes Next

Kalshi says the location problems flagged in the probe have already been fixed. How well those fixes hold up could matter beyond Nevada too, since Kalshi faces similar demands to block certain products in Michigan and Washington.

The fight is one piece of a much bigger battle playing out between Kalshi and gaming regulators across several states over whether prediction markets even fall under their authority. Kalshi runs as an exchange under CFTC oversight, but a number of states argue that it doesn’t shield its sports-linked contracts from state gambling law. A court will weigh both sides before deciding whether the fine sticks.