Court Allows Betting On U.S. Congressional Elections To Resume -- For Now

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Betting on the outcome of U.S. Congressional elections can resume, at least temporarily, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dissolved an order it had previously issued that prevented New York startup company Kalshi from taking bets on which political party would control the House and Senate after this November’s elections.

The ruling clears the way for such betting to resume while the court further considers the underlying issues in the case.

So far, Kalshi has only offered bets on congressional races; it was not immediately clear whether they plan to expand offerings to include the presidential election.

The court said it could reconsider a ban if the commission provides new evidence of serious harm to the public interest in the coming weeks.

Yaakov Roth, an attorney for Kalshi, said the company is now free to resume taking such bets, but did not know if it had already done so.

No such markets were listed on the company’s website as of 2 p.m., and a company spokeswoman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the government agency trying to prevent such betting, declined comment.

Kalshi is seeking government approval and regulation of political bets.

But the commission denied that approval, saying that such bets are vulnerable to manipulation, and could lessen already fragile confidence in the integrity of American elections.

A federal court last month ruled in favor of Kalshi, which took about $50,000 worth of such bets in the eight hours after the ruling, until the appeals panel issued a freeze on them.

That freeze was melted on Wednesday when the court ruled that