Kalshi’s CEO Tarek Mansour has characterised mounting legal action against the prediction-market platform as part of the disruption faced by companies entering established industries.
Mansour compared Kalshi with Uber and Airbnb after New York became the latest state to accuse the company of offering gambling without a local licence.
Speaking to CNBC, he said prediction markets had attracted customers while creating competition for established gambling businesses.
Tarek Mansour, co-founder and chief executive of Kalshi, said: “You have an industry, the prediction-market industry, that is disruptive, that is growing fast, consumers are adopting it, and it’s threatening a legacy incumbent industry that is unhappy about that.”
He said established industries frequently responded to new competitors through lobbying, litigation and attempts to influence legislation.
Mansour said: “The playbook is very simple. It’s litigate. Then you try to legislate. And then finally, when you realise that consumer demand is not going to go away, you try to compete and innovate.”
New York filed a lawsuit against Kalshi on 31 July, alleging that its sports and other event contracts constitute illegal gambling under state law.
Attorney General Letitia James is seeking an injunction preventing Kalshi from operating without approval from the New York State Gaming Commission, alongside restitution, forfeiture of alleged illegal gains and financial penalties.
Letitia James, attorney general of New York, said: “No matter what they call themselves, prediction markets like Kalshi are gambling platforms, plain and simple.”
Kalshi maintains that its contracts are federally regulated derivatives under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
A federal judge rejected Kalshi’s request to prevent New York from enforcing its gambling laws in July, finding that the company had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on its federal pre-emption arguments.
Kalshi is continuing to challenge state authority over the products. Mansour said the legal action reflected resistance from established gambling interests rather than weaker consumer demand.
