---
type: source
title: "CFTC Wins Arizona TRO Blocking Criminal Prosecution of Kalshi — First Federal Court Preemption Win"
author: "CFTC Press Release / CoinDesk Policy"
url: https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9211-26
date: 2026-04-10
domain: internet-finance
secondary_domains: []
format: regulatory-filing
status: unprocessed
priority: high
tags: [prediction-markets, cftc, preemption, arizona, tro, dcm, regulatory]
intake_tier: research-task
---

## Content

On April 10, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) at CFTC's request, blocking Arizona from pursuing criminal charges against Kalshi and other CFTC-registered Designated Contract Markets (DCMs). This followed CFTC's April 2 filing of simultaneous suits against Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois.

**Legal significance:** The court found CFTC "likely to succeed on the merits" of its claim that Arizona's gambling laws are preempted by the Commodity Exchange Act. Arizona had accused Kalshi of operating an unlicensed gambling business and allowing bets on elections and political outcomes, a practice expressly prohibited under state law.

**Scope of the TRO:** Explicitly limited to Arizona criminal proceedings against CFTC-regulated DCMs. Civil injunction actions in Connecticut and Illinois remain pending. A hearing on converting the TRO to a preliminary injunction is expected "in the coming weeks."

**First in series:** CFTC previously won the 3rd Circuit preliminary injunction in New Jersey (April 7), which was at the preliminary injunction standard. The Arizona TRO is the first affirmative CFTC federal court win against a state's enforcement proceeding — a federal court blocking a state criminal case specifically.

**Related cases:** CFTC press release CFTC-9208-26 (filing of suits against AZ, CT, IL on April 2) and CFTC-9211-26 (Arizona TRO grant on April 10). Case styles not yet confirmed from available sources.

**DCM-only scope:** The TRO applies exclusively to CFTC-registered contract markets. No non-registered on-chain protocols, no unregistered exchanges, no decentralized governance markets. The court's reasoning is premised on CEA exclusive jurisdiction over "federally registered" derivatives platforms.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the first federal court finding that CEA preemption "likely succeeds" against state gambling enforcement — a preliminary merits assessment, not just a procedural holding. It confirms the DCM-license preemption framework at the district court level. Combined with the 3rd Circuit preliminary injunction win, CFTC now has two levels of federal judicial support for preemption, both explicitly scoped to DCM-registered platforms.

**What surprised me:** This finding (April 10) was completely missed in Sessions 17-29 even though Session 17 documented the April 2 DOJ affirmative suits. The TRO was granted 8 days after the filing and somehow didn't appear in subsequent research. This is a 18-session gap in the archive record for a significant regulatory development.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Extension of TRO protection to non-registered on-chain protocols. The court's reasoning is explicitly DCM-scope-limited. If anything, the court's reasoning makes the two-tier structure MORE explicit, not less — the preemption argument is predicated on the platform being a "federally regulated market," which decentralized protocols are not.

**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]] — the Arizona TRO doesn't address this; it's about DCM preemption of state gambling law, not securities classification
- [[futarchy-based fundraising creates regulatory separation because there are no beneficial owners and investment decisions emerge from market forces not centralized control]] — the two-tier world this TRO creates makes the MetaDAO structural argument MORE important, not less
- Cross-session pattern (S16 "federal preemption confirmed, decentralized governance exposed") — the Arizona TRO is the most concrete confirmation of this pattern yet

**Extraction hints:**
1. "CFTC Arizona TRO (April 10, 2026) is the first federal court finding that CEA preemption is likely to succeed against state gambling enforcement, explicitly limited in scope to CFTC-registered DCMs — formalizing the two-tier regulatory structure where centralized platforms are actively protected and decentralized governance markets are ineligible for preemption protection" [confidence: likely]
2. "The DCM-license preemption asymmetry identified in prior analysis is now formalized by federal court order — registered platforms are preemption-protected; unregistered on-chain protocols must seek structural regulatory escape through mechanism design rather than federal preemption" [confidence: likely]

**Context:** Part of the 5-state CFTC litigation campaign (AZ, CT, IL filed April 2; NY filed April 24; WI filed April 28). The Arizona TRO is the only TRO win so far; other cases are at declaratory judgment + permanent injunction stage.

## 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: First federal court TRO confirming DCM preemption is likely to succeed — most concrete judicial confirmation of the two-tier regulatory structure in research series
EXTRACTION HINT: Extract the two-tier structure claim: DCMs protected by federal preemption, unregistered protocols outside preemption shield. This is the load-bearing regulatory finding for MetaDAO's structural argument.
