Utah filed 14 criminal counts against Kalshi and its two founders, a week after suing the company and a day after the CFTC sued Utah

Analysis · Updated October 29, 2026 · 18+ · Not legal advice · By BetG8 Editorial · Prediction Markets

Utah criminal charges against Kalshi and its founders — The case rests on 12 bets an undercover state investigator placed over 11 days in September.

Short version: On October 28, 2026 Utah Attorney General Derek Brown charged KalshiEX and its co-founders, chief executive Tarek Mansour and chief operating officer Luana Lopes Lara, with 14 counts in state court in Salt Lake City: one second-degree felony, 12 third-degree felonies and one class A misdemeanor. It is the second criminal case against Kalshi after Arizona’s, and the first anywhere to name its founders. The charges are allegations. No court has ordered Kalshi out of Utah, and the federal government sued Utah two days earlier to stop exactly this kind of enforcement.

LIVE MARKETHow many Fed rate cuts in 2026?Trade on Polymarket →

Utah has now used every tool a state has against a prediction market in the space of nine days. On October 20 it filed a civil suit asking a state court to shut Kalshi’s Utah business and hand over the fees it earned there. On October 26 the CFTC and the United States sued Utah in federal court to stop it. On October 28 Brown answered with criminal charges against the company and the two people who founded it. Kalshi called the filing “a crazy overreach” and said Utah “is clearly playing politics.”

What the charges say

According to the charging documents reported by the Deseret News, the 14 counts break down as follows.

Count	Number	Grade
Pattern of unlawful activity	1	Second-degree felony
Online gambling promotion	12	Third-degree felony
Gambling promotion	1	Class A misdemeanor
Total	14	13 felonies, 1 misdemeanor

The 12 online gambling counts match the 12 bets in the investigation. The pattern count is Utah’s racketeering-style charge, which lets prosecutors tie the individual transactions into a single scheme. The Associated Press reported that the attorney general’s office has not said what penalties it will seek, but that felony charges carry possible jail time. Brown’s statement was short: “Gambling is illegal in Utah, whether you place the bet, run the game, or promote it.”

Twelve bets, eleven days, $4.13

The evidence is an undercover account. A state investigator opened it on September 13, 2026 under an assumed name, with a Utah address, a Utah phone number and a locally issued Visa debit card. Before he could trade, Kalshi asked him to confirm his location through his device’s location services, a detail The Salt Lake Tribune highlighted because it shows the company knew where he was. Over the next 11 days, trading from Salt Lake and Davis counties, he placed a dozen bets on NFL and MLB games, the Utah–Utah State football game and a Real Salt Lake match.

One example from the filing: a $5.00 position that Utah would beat Utah State by more than 27.5 points, priced at 53 percent. Utah won by 36 on September 19 and the investigator collected $4.13 in profit. The documents say Kalshi charged fees of 3 to 78 cents per transaction. The amounts are trivial; the point of the exercise is to prove that a Utah resident, located in Utah, could place sports wagers through Kalshi, which is the element the gambling statutes require.

Nine days in Utah

Date	Event
Aug 4, 2026	Judge Robert J. Shelby rules Utah’s gambling law is not preempted and closes Kalshi’s federal suit
Sep 8	Tenth Circuit refuses to block enforcement while Kalshi appeals
Sep 13–24	Undercover account opened; 12 bets placed
Oct 20	Civil suit against Kalshi and Susquehanna; Utah estimates Kalshi’s Utah fees at about $30.5 million to $61 million
Oct 26	CFTC and the United States sue Utah; separately, OG.com (Nadex) sues Utah’s attorney general
Oct 28	Criminal charges against Kalshi, Mansour and Lopes Lara

The sequence matters because Utah is the one state where Kalshi has already lost in federal court with no relief pending appeal. Shelby’s August 4 judgment and the Tenth Circuit’s September 8 order mean no federal court currently stands between Utah and enforcement. The CFTC’s October 26 complaint, its tenth against a state, asks for an injunction barring Utah from investigating or enforcing against CFTC-regulated exchanges and their partners. As the Tribune noted, its suit against Minnesota produced an injunction about ten weeks after filing. A criminal case filed in the meantime is harder to unwind than a civil one.

Arizona did this first, and it stalled

Arizona filed 20 criminal counts against KalshiEX and Kalshi Trading in Maricopa County on March 17, 2026. The CFTC sued Arizona on April 2, and on April 10 a federal judge blocked the state from arraigning Kalshi; Arizona is appealing. The Utah case differs in three ways. It names the founders personally, not just corporate entities. It is built on a documented undercover account rather than on the company’s public listings. And it is filed in a circuit whose district court has already ruled for the state on preemption, which removes the argument that won Kalshi its pause in Arizona, at least until the Tenth Circuit decides the appeal.

The exchanges went to court the same week

Utah’s charges landed in a week when the exchanges moved first in three other places, according to RG.org. On October 26 North American Derivatives Exchange, which runs OG.com, sued Brown in the District of Utah (No. 2:26-cv-01056), citing the Kalshi suit as proof it would be next. On October 27 Kalshi sued Missouri’s attorney general and Gaming Commission in the Eastern District of Missouri (No. 4:26-cv-01860) rather than comply with a September cease-and-desist, saying no Missouri licence is “realistically available” to it, as Sports Betting Dime reported. The same day Polymarket US sued Louisiana’s attorney general and Gaming Control Board in the Eastern District of Louisiana (No. 2:26-cv-02482), four days after Kalshi sued Louisiana in the Western District. Every one of those suits rests on the same preemption claim the CFTC is now pressing against Utah.

What happens next

In the criminal case, the next steps are a summons or arraignment for the company and the two founders; no date has been reported. In the federal case, the CFTC can ask for a preliminary injunction that would reach the prosecution, and Kalshi’s Tenth Circuit appeal continues. Nationally, Kalshi’s response to New Jersey’s Supreme Court petition, No. 26-299, is due November 9. Utah’s civil complaint covers election contracts as well as sports, which puts its timing next to the November 3 midterms; live prices for those races are on our 2026 midterm election odds page. Kalshi remained available in Utah as of October 29.

Method and limits

The charge breakdown and the investigation details come from press reports of the charging documents, principally the Deseret News and The Salt Lake Tribune; we have not reviewed the filings ourselves. The AP described the counts differently, as 13 gambling counts and one count of profiting from illegal activity; we use the Deseret News breakdown because it lists the statutes and grades. Criminal charges are accusations and every defendant is presumed innocent. Case numbers for the civil suits are from RG.org’s review of the dockets. This is analysis, not legal advice.

Frequently asked questions

What did Utah charge Kalshi with?

On October 28, 2026 the Utah Attorney General filed 14 counts against Kalshi and co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara: one count of pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony; 12 counts of online gambling promotion, third-degree felonies; and one count of gambling promotion, a class A misdemeanor.

Is Kalshi still available in Utah?

As of October 29, 2026 no court order has required Kalshi to stop serving Utah. Charges are allegations; the civil suit filed on October 20 asks for an injunction but none has been granted.

Is this the first criminal case against Kalshi?

No. Arizona filed 20 criminal counts against two Kalshi entities on March 17, 2026. A federal judge blocked that prosecution before arraignment on April 10 and Arizona is appealing. Utah is the first state to charge the founders personally.

How does the CFTC suit against Utah affect the charges?

The CFTC sued Utah in federal court on October 26 and asks for an injunction barring the state from investigating or enforcing against CFTC-regulated exchanges. If granted it could stop the prosecution; until then the state case can proceed.