Is Kalshi legal in North Carolina?

We found none. In what we read, no North Carolina court has ordered Kalshi to stop, and neither the Attorney General nor the State Lottery Commission has sued it or sent it a cease-and-desist letter. That separates North Carolina from the states that have gone to court, where officials call Kalshi's sports contracts unlicensed sports wagering and Kalshi answers that they are swaps on an exchange the CFTC designated as a contract market on November 3, 2020. Whether Kalshi is gambling sets out both readings.

North Carolina's legislature has acted twice, in opposite directions. The Current Operations Appropriations Act of 2026 taxes prediction market operators. A separate House bill would make betting on a prediction market a crime. Only the first is law.

Section 44.9 of Senate Bill 257, the state budget, adds a new Article 2F, "Tax on Prediction Markets", to Chapter 105 of the General Statutes. The General Assembly ratified the bill on July 2, 2026, and the Governor signed it on July 7 as Session Law 2026-41 (bill history). The measure, piece by piece:

• Who pays. "A tax is imposed on each operator of a prediction market at the rate of six percent (6%) of the operator's net trading fee revenue apportionable to the State" (G.S. 105-113.131(b), p.626). A prediction market is any platform through which a consumer may buy, sell or exchange event contracts, inside or outside the state, including a CFTC-designated contract market (G.S. 105-113.130(8)).
• Which contracts. An event contract is a swap on a designated contract market or swap execution facility "for which the event or contingency involves sports", leaving out contracts on a commodity's price, rate or value (G.S. 105-113.130(4), p.626). The definition reaches only contracts whose event involves sports.
• The base. Prediction market revenue is taker fees, fees charged to liquidity providers for resting orders, and commissions charged to brokers, clearing organizations and other intermediaries. Net trading fee revenue subtracts broker or market maker compensation, promotional incentives and rebates, clearing or platform fees charged by a derivatives clearing organization, and withdrawal fees (G.S. 105-113.130(7), (9)).
• Whose trades count. Revenue is apportioned to North Carolina when a resident, "domiciled and present in the State at the time of the trade", trades an event contract and pays trading fees (G.S. 105-113.131(c), p.627).
• When. The tax applies to net trading fee revenue received on or after January 1, 2027 (Sec. 44.9(b), p.627). The return is annual and due by the last day of the month after the calendar year it covers, on a form the Secretary of Revenue prescribes (G.S. 105-113.131(d)). We found no Department of Revenue form or guidance for Article 2F as of November 9, 2026.

The same subsection adds: "This tax does not impose any license, registration, or other regulatory requirements or obligations of any kind on prediction markets" (p.627).

The "Authority" subsection

Ahead of the tax, the General Assembly wrote a subsection headed "Authority". Its text: a prediction market registered with the CFTC that offers event contracts, sporting event contracts included, to North Carolina residents "may operate within the State lawfully as a result of its registration with the Commission and its compliance with the Commodity Exchange Act and its implementing regulations, which establish exclusive federal regulatory authority of the Commission over prediction markets" (G.S. 105-113.131(a), p.626). That is the statute's own wording, and we found no North Carolina court decision applying it.

How it compares with the sportsbook tax in the same act

Section 44.7 of the same act raises the tax on licensed interactive sports wagering operators to "twenty-three percent (23%)" of gross wagering revenue, imposed "for the privilege of being licensed under Article 9 of Chapter 18C" (p.623), effective when the act became law (Sec. 44.7(d), p.625). The sportsbook tax is tied to a state license and measured on gross wagering revenue; the prediction market tax is measured on net trading fees, and its own text says it imposes no license.

House Bill 1171, "Prohibit Gambling in Prediction Markets", was filed on April 30, 2026 by Representatives Harrison, Morey and Butler. It rewrites G.S. 14-292 so that a person or organization that operates any game of chance, or a person that plays at or bets on one, is guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor, and adds that the section applies to "any online market or platform offered to residents of this State, including a prediction market", defined as "a market or platform where a person can bet on the outcome of a future event" (p.1, lines 6-15). It would give the State Lottery Commission $10,000 for the 2026-27 fiscal year to enforce it (lines 18-20).

The text dates the offense from December 1, 2026, but that applies only if the bill is enacted. It passed first reading and went to the House Committee on Rules, Calendar, and Operations on May 4, 2026, and the bill history shows no later action as of November 9, 2026.

North Carolina's federal courts are in the Fourth Circuit (28 U.S.C. § 41). That court heard Kalshi's appeal from Maryland, KalshiEX v. Martin, No. 25-1892, which its argument list dates May 7, 2026, after a federal judge refused to block Maryland's gaming laws for Kalshi's sports contracts. We found no opinion as of October 21, 2026, and Kalshi in Maryland follows it. Other circuits have split: the Third ruled for Kalshi, and the Ninth and Sixth for the states, each at a preliminary stage.

Whether federal commodities law preempts state gambling law for these contracts is before the Supreme Court in petitions that Kalshi Supreme Court tracker follows; none has been granted. Every other state's status is on the Kalshi legal page.

We found no North Carolina order that stops it, and no North Carolina action naming Robinhood, Coinbase or Webull, which offer Kalshi's contracts to their own customers. Senate Bill 257 names no company. Its definition of a prediction market reaches "any other exchange, platform, or business that offers event contracts for trading which are in fact traded by a consumer located in the State" (G.S. 105-113.130(8), p.626), and its base subtracts what an operator pays brokers. We found no order or filing that addresses withdrawals, deposits or open positions.

A state law on who may offer prediction markets, or on what their operators owe, is not a ruling on how a trader's own gains and losses are taxed. How Realize rebuilds a Kalshi year for the federal return is in how to file Kalshi taxes.