Professional poker champion Daniel Negreanu has officially entered a partnership with prediction market platform Kalshi. The announcement was made by Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour on 16 September (Tuesday), who compared Negreanu’s career journey in professional poker with Kalshi’s own regulatory struggles. Negreanu, nicknamed “Kid Poker,” brings seven World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and over $56 million in tournament winnings to the collaboration.
Kalshi draws parallels to poker’s challenges
“Kalshi’s fight for prediction markets has followed a similar path,” Mansour said. “We have failed and been rejected more times than I can remember, but we did not waver in our commitment to the vision: expand the world of financial markets, no matter the cost, no matter the hardship.”
Negreanu also expressed excitement for the platform’s potential, tweeting:“On Kalshi, you can trade on everything from Football to Politics to Pop Culture — it’s a game-changer and available in all 50 States!”
Critics warn of gambling overlap
Despite the fanfare, Kalshi faces mounting scrutiny from state regulators and critics who argue its binary event contracts function more like gambling than investment products. The platform was most recently sued by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell for alleged illegal gambling operations, with the state’s Gaming Commission seeking an injunction to block sports contracts from the platform.
A Kalshi spokesperson told SiGMA News, “Kalshi offers its users a fair, transparent, federally-regulated, and nationwide marketplace. Rather than engage in dialogue with Kalshi as many other states have done, Massachusetts is trying to block Kalshi’s innovations by relying on outdated laws and ideas.”
The decision to align with a professional poker player as brand ambassador could fuel critics’ arguments that Kalshi resembles a gambling operator more than a financial exchange. While Kalshi maintains that it enables legitimate hedging, its promotional language often encourages users to “bet” on outcomes.
Legal battles intensify
The Negreanu partnership comes just one day after Kalshi’s trading partner Robinhood filed federal lawsuits to prevent Massachusetts regulators from enforcing state gambling laws. Court filings revealed that $1 billion worth of Kalshi contracts traded through Robinhood in the second quarter alone. “Sports wagering comes with significant risk of addiction and financial loss and must be strictly regulated to mitigate public health consequences,” Campbell said in announcing the lawsuit.
A Robinhood spokesperson told SiGMA News, “We believe in the power of prediction markets and the important role they play at the intersection of trading, news, economics, politics, culture, and sports. Every eligible customer should have access to these markets, which are federally regulated through our CFTC-registered Futures Commission Merchant. This step, consistent with our past actions in other jurisdictions, aims to preserve access for those in Massachusetts.”
Massachusetts is just the latest in a string of legal jurisdictions cracking down on Kalshi’s sports contracts. In July, three federally recognised California tribes — the Blue Lake Rancheria, the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, and the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians — filed a lawsuit against Kalshi and Robinhood. The tribes argue that Kalshi is disguising illegal sports betting as financial trading, violating the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and tribal sovereignty.
The plaintiffs have asked the court to block Kalshi’s services on tribal lands, and prohibit advertising that falsely claims the product is “legal in all 50 states. Additionally, they have asked to halt promotion of “sports betting,” including controversial campaigns suggesting betting during March Madness — even among high schoolers.
A separate lawsuit in Wisconsin by the Ho-Chunk Nation also targets Kalshi and Robinhood, accusing the companies of racketeering and IGRA violations. Meanwhile, in another case, a Nevada District Court recently denied Kalshi’s attempt to avoid discovery in a case brought by state regulators, ruling that factual investigation is necessary to determine how Kalshi’s contracts align with state and federal law.
Star power meets market volatility
Negreanu’s partnership includes a promotional element where he will stake a fan into the WSOP Paradise Super Main Event. The Canadian-born player, who moved to Las Vegas in his early twenties, became the youngest WSOP champion in 1998 at just 23 years old.
Meanwhile, Kalshi continues to face uncertainty. Since launching sports markets, the platform has processed over $1 billion in trades on 3.4 million propositions. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has yet to provide clarity, cancelling a scheduled public roundtable on prediction markets earlier this year.
However, the CFTC and US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced that they will host a joint roundtable on 29 September to address the murky legal status of prediction markets and event contracts. Both agencies have previously signalled that these “novel products” may require updated frameworks to address risks and jurisdictional overlap. Industry experts have also urged federal agencies to take a clearer stance.
