Nevada regulator rules out fallback plan if Kalshi wins at Supreme Court

Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer says he is not drawing up a fallback position in case the regulated gambling industry loses its legal fight against prediction markets at the Supreme Court.

"There's no plan B for crime, and [we're] standing up for the rule of law," Dreitzer said on Wednesday's episode of The New Normal podcast, as reported by Legal Sports Report.

Dreitzer appeared alongside Indian Gaming Association Conference Chairman Victor Rocha, the association's executive director Jason Giles, and tribal gaming attorney Scott Crowell of Crowell Law Offices Tribal Advocacy Group to discuss the standoff between prediction market platforms and licensed sportsbooks.

The discussion followed an interim final rule issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on 9 October that excludes casino-style gambling products, including sportsbook wagers and casino games, from the legal definition of a swap.

Kalshi began offering sports event contracts nationwide in 2025, including in states where sports betting itself is not legal, with users as young as 18 able to trade on the outcomes of games.

Dreitzer described Kalshi and similar platforms as operators of "illegal sportsbooks," telling listeners "it's crime, it's not innovation."

The stance has produced unusual unity across the gambling industry, with commercial operators and most tribal gaming interests aligned against prediction markets despite frequently disagreeing on other issues.

According to Legal Sports Report, MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment have declined to enter the prediction markets business, unlike FanDuel and DraftKings, so as not to jeopardise their casino licences.

Giles said tribal representatives at the Global Gaming Expo had pressed for a contingency plan in the event states and tribes lose at the Supreme Court, worried about being left behind competitively.

Some tribes have already moved to partner with Kalshi this month, though one tribe named in an announcement denied having any relationship with the platform.

Dreitzer said he sympathised with tribes and licensees who have followed the rules at what he called a potential short-term cost to themselves, but insisted the industry must hold its position collectively.

"We need to meet the moment as the states and tribes have done collectively. This is our hardest hour and our finest hour," he said, adding there is "no other choice" and predicting the regulated side will prevail.

The legal picture is less settled than Dreitzer's confidence suggests, given a split among federal appeals courts. Kalshi has already won a favourable decision from the Third Circuit in a case out of New Jersey, and this month secured a preliminary injunction in a separate dispute in Illinois.

States have nonetheless won the majority of rulings to date, including at the Sixth and Ninth Circuits, which Legal Sports Report described as the most consequential so far.

Crowell said that if prediction market operators prevail at the Supreme Court, the fight would likely shift to Congress. "If we lose in federal court, we're going to be looking at Congress," he said, adding that he believes "Congress is more likely to fix the error."

Crowell argued that if lawmakers intended to create a federal gambling regulator, it would need to be equipped with the "expertise and tools that are necessary, which the CFTC certainly does not have."

The NFL made a similar point in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court, noting the CFTC employed only 543 people as of September 2025, compared with gaming regulators in Nevada and Pennsylvania who each employ close to 400 staff dedicated solely to gambling oversight.

The CFTC's interim final rule states what the agency calls its longstanding position that casino-style gambling products are excluded from the swap definition. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said in announcing the measure that "casino-style gambling products are not derivatives."

The rule took effect immediately upon publication in the Federal Register, with a 30-day comment period to follow, and was paired with a proposed rule that would expand the swap definition to cover event contracts tied to sports, politics, culture and weather, which Selig said fall "within the agency's exclusive jurisdiction."

Giles rejected the distinction the CFTC is drawing between a sportsbook wager and a sports event contract, calling the rulemaking "a disgrace to democracy" and accusing the agency of weaponising its authority. "This is weaponization of an agency. It's Orwellian, because you read this whole thing, and they just start with their premise and literally create the law from what they believe, and tell two courts that they're wrong and tell all these states that they're wrong," he said.

Dreitzer said he does not expect the casino-style carve-out to hold, predicting prediction market operators will exploit any opening. "They'll just get away with what they can get away with," he said, adding that if a rule emerged within six months permitting some form of casino-style gambling as a prediction market contract, "they'll do it. I have no doubt about it."