Judge Blocks Kalshi's Sports Contracts on California Tribal Lands

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted California tribes a preliminary injunction on Nov. 4, barring Kalshi Inc. and KalshiEX from offering sports event contracts on the plaintiff tribes' Indian lands. The Northern District of California order sweeps in any sports contract that touches or even references baseball, tennis, pickleball, soccer, basketball, football, golf, chess, esports, hockey, motorsports, boxing, wrestling or UFC events. It applies to the plaintiff tribes' lands only — not California as a whole.

The ruling upgrades a disputed handshake into an obligation. In an Oct. 14 joint status report, Kalshi said it had already teamed with GeoComply to block sports trading from the tribes' lands and argued no injunction was needed. The tribes pushed back, calling the blocks ineffective and demanding something enforceable. They got it.

There's no delayed start date, and Corley didn't dictate which location-blocking technology Kalshi must use. The tribes have until Nov. 13 to hand over boundary maps, and Kalshi must report its compliance steps within 21 days of the order.

The injunction lands after a Sept. 16 Ninth Circuit decision favoring Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians. Corley had initially denied preliminary relief; the appeals court found the tribes likely to succeed under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and sent the case back to weigh the remaining injunction factors. The panel treated the challenged contracts as Class III gaming under IGRA, reasoning that a customer buying one while physically on tribal land is gaming there — even if Kalshi's infrastructure sits somewhere else. It also swatted away Kalshi's claim that the Commodity Exchange Act's exclusive CFTC jurisdiction displaced the tribes' federal gaming-law argument.

Kalshi runs a federally regulated derivatives exchange, and its sports contracts pay out if a chosen outcome hits or expire worthless if it doesn't. Its legal reality now splits by circuit: the Second Circuit denied interim protection on Nov. 3 in Kalshi's New York and Connecticut appeals and Coinbase Financial Markets' Connecticut appeal — but that order withheld a shield against state enforcement rather than ordering trading to stop. Those appeals grind on with no ruling on the merits, while the California tribes hold a preliminary order that directly limits what Kalshi can offer on their land.