---
type: source
title: "Massachusetts SJC Prediction Market Case — Competing Federal/State Amicus, Ruling Still Pending"
author: "Bettors Insider / NY AG Press Release / The Block"
url: https://bettorsinsider.com/sports-betting/2026/04/28/38-attorneys-general-just-lined-up-against-prediction-markets-while-the-cftc-takes-the-fight-to-the-massachusetts-supreme-court/
date: 2026-04-28
domain: internet-finance
secondary_domains: []
format: news-synthesis
status: unprocessed
priority: medium
tags: [prediction-markets, massachusetts, sjc, amicus, cftc, preemption, state-gambling]
intake_tier: research-task
---

## Content

Case: Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. KalshiEx LLC, No. SJC-13906, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

**Current status (April 28):** Case is fully briefed and pending decision. No ruling has been issued. Both CFTC and 38 AGs filed competing amicus briefs on April 24.

**History of the case:**
- September 2025: Massachusetts AG sued Kalshi, becoming the FIRST state to sue a prediction market platform
- January 21, 2026: Suffolk County Superior Court granted preliminary injunction blocking Kalshi from offering sports event contracts without state license ("Massachusetts Blocks Kalshi" geofencing ruling — February 9 ruling confirmed)
- Case appealed to Massachusetts SJC (highest state court)
- April 24, 2026: CFTC filed amicus brief asserting federal preemption; simultaneously, 38 state AGs + DC filed amicus brief opposing CFTC preemption

**38 AGs amicus argument:** Dodd-Frank targeted 2008 crisis financial instruments, not gambling. The CEA's "exclusive jurisdiction" language cannot be extended to sports gambling based on a statutory provision that doesn't mention gambling. States have sovereign authority over gambling regulation.

**CFTC amicus argument:** Congress created the CFTC framework specifically to prevent state-by-state regulatory patchwork. Allowing state gambling laws to override federal derivatives oversight would "reintroduce fragmented oversight across jurisdictions." The CEA's swap definition is broad enough to cover prediction market event contracts.

**Coalition breakdown:** 37 states + Washington DC. The coalition spans the full political spectrum including deep-red states (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah). This is near-consensus state government opposition, not partisan resistance.

**Why this case matters differently from federal district courts:** The SJC is a STATE supreme court deciding whether its own AG's enforcement is preempted. Unlike federal district courts where CFTC files the offensive case, here CFTC is asking the state's own highest court to find state power preempted. Structural dynamic makes 38-AG coalition more naturally aligned with the court's institutional perspective.

**Expected timeline:** Massachusetts SJC cases with competing amicus coalitions do not have predictable timelines. The dispute is heading toward SCOTUS eventually — some observers estimate resolution not until 2028.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** The SJC case is the template for what happens when CFTC's aggressive federal litigation campaign meets a state supreme court that must decide whether its own state's laws are preempted. The 38-AG coalition represents near-consensus state sovereignty position. If SJC rules against CFTC, it creates a state supreme court precedent that compounds with the 9th Circuit's likely adverse ruling and creates massive SCOTUS pressure.

**What surprised me:** The simultaneity of CFTC filing its own amicus brief at the Massachusetts SJC on the SAME DAY as the 38-AG coalition filed (April 24). CFTC monitored the 38-AG filing and responded same day. This is the same same-day response pattern as the Wisconsin counter-filing. CFTC is operating in real-time monitoring mode.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Any signal from the SJC about oral argument scheduling or preliminary inclination. The case is fully briefed and the court has not indicated timeline.

**KB connections:**
- [[the DAO Reports rejection of voting as active management is the central legal hurdle for futarchy because prediction market trading must prove fundamentally more meaningful than token voting]] — SJC case is about gaming classification, not DAO Report doctrine; separate regulatory track
- Pattern from Sessions 2-29: "Regulatory bifurcation" — federal pushing for clarity, states resisting. The SJC case is the institutional embodiment of this bifurcation at the state supreme court level.

**Extraction hints:**
1. "38-state bipartisan amicus coalition (April 24, 2026) represents near-consensus state sovereignty position against CFTC prediction market preemption — the strongest political signal yet that the state-federal conflict requires SCOTUS resolution rather than lower court settlement" [confidence: likely]
2. "Massachusetts SJC is a structurally different venue from federal district courts for preemption arguments because a state supreme court deciding whether its own AG's enforcement is preempted faces an institutional alignment problem that federal courts don't have" [confidence: speculative — analytical, no direct citation]

**Context:** The Massachusetts case was the first state lawsuit (September 2025). Massachusetts AG has secured every preliminary ruling in its favor so far (Superior Court injunction, SJC case accepted). The CFTC's amicus brief — arguing that Massachusetts's own supreme court should invalidate Massachusetts's enforcement — is structurally unusual and may face skepticism from the SJC justices.

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[futarchy-based fundraising creates regulatory separation because there are no beneficial owners and investment decisions emerge from market forces not centralized control]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Most advanced state enforcement case; SJC ruling will create state-law precedent independently of federal courts; 38-AG coalition size is the most concrete signal of state political consensus in the research series
EXTRACTION HINT: The "structural institutional alignment" observation (state supreme court vs. federal district court for preemption arguments) is worth developing as a claim about why SJC cases are harder for CFTC than district court cases.
