USCA4 Appeal: 25-1892
Doc: 44
Filed: 12/22/2025
Pg: 16 of 39
betting (and, under Kalshi’s theory, possibly other forms of gaming) to the detriment of tribes and states. See Hendrick , 2025 WL 3286282, at *1. The text and legislative history of the 2010 CEA amendments and subsequent CFTC actions confirm the CFTC was not intended to regulate sports betting. It is Kalshi, not Congress or the CFTC, that seeks to convert the CFTC into the nation’s sole sports-betting regulator. To the contrary, the CEA avoids all conflict with IGRA by excluding from the CFTC’s jurisdiction the type of sports-betting contracts Kalshi offers. Second, Kalshi’s argument violates the major questions doctrine. Under Kalshi’s theory, the 2010 CEA amendments displaced both state and tribal gaming regulators and made the CFTC the sole sports-betting regulator. Such a broad grant of authority must come with clear congressional intent, of which there is none. Gaming regulation has historically been within state and tribal authority, and Congress has repeatedly affirmed states and tribes as the primary gaming regulators. Indeed, in 2010, federal law explicitly relied on state gambling laws to prohibit sports betting nationwide. It is implausible that Congress meant to overturn the long tradition of state and tribal gaming regulation—let alone its own efforts to prohibit sports betting—when it changed a definition in an unrelated statute.
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