Nobody should ever be threatened with prison time because of a jurisdictional dispute between federal and state governments. That's antithetical to the rule of law, regardless of the specifics of the law or the jurisdictional dispute.
Creating a company with the intent to circumvent the law is definitely something that should be punishable with stricter measures than simply breaking the law directly.
Federal law doesn't always preempt state law, preemption is only applied in certain cases. Given that gambling is traditionally the domain of states to regulate, Kalshi's argument is really dependent on this being "not gambling".
Given that their primary business is literally sports betting -- it's going to be a tough battle.
The only reason it has gone this far is that the current admin's family is personally invested in this bullshit.
It is the same argument that a "sovereign citizen". The "I do not recognize your law" kind of stupidity. The only reason they have not been long in prison is corruption at the highest level at the White House.
They're being threatened with prion time because they broke state law. That the federal government is looking one way while states another is not the cause of the jail time threat.
They should be thrown in prison for knowingly violating a law. Trying to play a semantics game (prediction market vs gambling) to get out of it is just scummy. Everybody knows it is gambling.
