A judge has reportedly said he will issue a preliminary injunction banning online market prediction platform Kaishi from operating in the state of Massachusetts.
Judge Christopher Barry-Smith of the Superior Court of Suffolk County has ruled that Kaishi cannot allow state residents to use his platform to make financial bets on unlicensed sporting events.
Barry-Smith issued the ruling months after Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed a lawsuit in September accusing Kaishi of offering sports betting under the guise of event contracts without obtaining a license from the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.
Barry-Smith says he plans to issue a court order requiring Kaishi to do so comply with the state’s sports betting law after a hearing Friday, where he could also consider pausing his order to allow time for an appeal.
Say Barry-Smith,
“There is no real doubt that the licensing, and resulting oversight, of sports betting in the state serves both the public health and safety and the financial interests of the Commonwealth.”
Campbell says state-licensed gambling operators are prohibited from offering sports betting to anyone under the age of 21, but Kaishi offered an addictive gambling product to those over 18 without a license.
Meanwhile, Kaishi says the state’s gambling laws do not apply to the contracts for sporting events. The platform says these fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which has authority over exchange-traded swaps.
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