CFTC sues Arkansas as agency defends its jurisdiction over prediction markets

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit Friday against Arkansas to block the state’s attempts to halt event-contract trading and impose up to hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties on CFTC-registered exchanges. Arkansas is bringing a civil enforcement in state court against Kalshi, a CFTC-designated contract market. Arkansas’s efforts to obstruct the functions of CFTC-registered exchanges operating lawfully under the Commodity Exchange Act are preempted by federal law.