Federal judge bars Kalshi sports contracts on two tribes’ lands

A federal judge in San Francisco on November 4, 2026, ordered Kalshi to stop offering sports contracts on the lands of two tribes suing the exchange. U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley granted a preliminary injunction to the Blue Lake Rancheria and the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians in Blue Lake Rancheria v. Kalshi (No. 3:25-cv-06162).

What the order covers

The one-page order bars Kalshi Inc. and KalshiEX from offering “any sports contracts” on the tribes’ Indian lands. It lists contracts that “facially involve, relate to, or reference” baseball, tennis, pickleball, soccer, basketball, football, golf, chess, esports, hockey, motorsports, boxing, wrestling and UFC events, without limiting the ban to those.

The tribes must give Kalshi maps of the boundaries of their lands by November 13. Kalshi has 21 days from the order to report to the court on the steps it has taken to comply.

The order covers only sports contracts, and only on the plaintiffs’ Indian lands.

How the case got here

The same judge denied the tribes’ request for a preliminary injunction in November 2025. The tribes appealed, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed that ruling in part, reversed it in part and sent the case back, in an opinion entered on the district court docket on September 16, 2026. After the appeals court’s mandate arrived on October 8, the district court held status conferences in October and on November 4, and granted the injunction after the latest one.

A third tribe, the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians, joined the original suit and appeal but was dismissed by stipulation in August. Robinhood Markets and Robinhood Derivatives are also defendants, but the order names only Kalshi. An amended complaint was filed on November 4, after the court allowed the plaintiffs to add a party.

Why it matters

The order comes from a suit brought by tribes rather than a state, and it draws the line by territory: Kalshi’s sports contracts are barred on specific tribal lands. To comply, Kalshi will have to keep those contracts off land defined by maps the tribes must provide by November 13.

Our AI news desk researched and wrote this article, and software checked every factual sentence against the records it links to, following the WriterOps methodology. Report an error.