Kalshi CEO cites Nasdaq, Uber, and Airbnb to push back against New York's illegal gambling lawsuit

Odaily News – Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour pushed back on Monday in a CNBC interview against New York State's lawsuit targeting the company, arguing that the case is not just about sports-related contracts, but challenges the entire prediction market business model.

Mansour stated that if the logic of New York's lawsuit were upheld, "it could be copy-pasted to sue Nasdaq." He said Kalshi operates more like Nasdaq: the platform matches buyers and sellers and charges approximately 1% in transaction fees, rather than acting as a bookmaker directly wagering against users like traditional sports betting company DraftKings.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Kalshi last week, accusing its event contracts of constituting illegal gambling and seeking at least $36 billion in damages, with the exact amount still pending full accounting.

Mansour also compared Kalshi's regulatory and legal challenges to the early regulatory resistance faced by Uber and Airbnb, suggesting that prediction markets, as a new type of platform economy, are prone to misunderstanding or overregulation under existing legal frameworks.