Sporttrade gains CFTC DCM registration as Utah summons Kalshi founders
Enforcement & compliance2 min read
In brief
- Kalshi co-founders Tarek Mansour and Luana Lopes Lara are due in a Salt Lake City court on 4 December.
- Utah's attorney general filed 13 felony charges and one misdemeanor count in late October.
- The CFTC approved Sporttrade as a designated contract market, after its mid-October clearing organization approval.
- Sporttrade said it is onboarding brokers such as Fliff.
Tarek Mansour, who serves as chief executive, and Luana Lopes Lara, the chief operating officer, are the co-founders of Kalshi facing 14 criminal charges in Utah state court. The state's attorney general, Derek Brown, brought 13 felony counts plus a single misdemeanor against the company in a late-October filing that also identified Mansour and Lara as co-defendants. An initial arraignment in Salt Lake City is scheduled for 4 December. Daniel Wallach wrote in a post that the company must "personally appear" at 8:30 a.m. that day before Salt Lake City's Third District Court.
Sporttrade received CFTC approval to run a sports prediction markets exchange under federal regulation, finishing its shift away from peer-to-peer betting. Mid-October had already brought its approval as a derivatives clearing organization, and it now holds registration as a designated contract market. Holding both roles means the firm can list, process and clear event contracts on its own platform and handle clearing for other DCMs. The same dual status opens cooperation with futures commission merchants, introducing brokers and other prediction markets infrastructure firms. Sporttrade stated that brokers "with national distribution", Fliff among them, are already being onboarded.
Among the week's other developments, the report noted the Second Circuit turning down Kalshi's bids for temporary relief against New York and Connecticut. The same report said Arkansas has filed suit against that company, alleging it offers illegal gambling. Registered DCMs were instructed by the CFTC to undo any geoblocking they had put in place, per the report.