New Jersey Files 332-Page SCOTUS Petition — First State to Ask Supreme Court to Rule on Prediction Markets
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a 332-page certiorari petition with the U.S. Supreme Court on September 2, formally asking the Court to resolve whether Dodd-Frank preempts states from regulating sports bets on CFTC-registered prediction market platforms. New Jersey is the losing party from the Third Circuit's April ruling for Kalshi and can cite the Ninth Circuit's August 28 ruling against Kalshi as direct circuit conflict. Kalshi has 30 days from docketing to file a response; SCOTUS has approximately 90 days to decide whether to grant review. The probability of SCOTUS taking the case by year-end has settled at around 46% on Polymarket after an initial spike to 64%.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a writ of certiorari with the United States Supreme Court on September 2, 2026 — the first state in the country to formally ask the Court to resolve the prediction market sports contract question. The 332-page petition poses the central question directly: whether the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act preempts states from regulating sports bets that occur within their jurisdictions if those bets are offered on markets registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. New Jersey was on the losing side of the Third Circuit's April 2026 ruling, which held that Kalshi's sports event contracts are swaps under the CEA and that CFTC jurisdiction is therefore exclusive. The Ninth Circuit's August 28 ruling, five days before NJ's filing deadline, ruled exactly the opposite — that sports contracts are not swaps and that states can regulate them. NJ's petition can now cite two federal appellate courts that reached opposite conclusions on the same statutory question about the same type of contract. That is the clearest possible circuit split trigger for SCOTUS review.
The procedural mechanics following the filing matter for anyone tracking the timeline. The Supreme Court clerk dockets cert petitions, and Kalshi — the respondent — has 30 days from docketing to file an opposition or waive response. After Kalshi's response (or the waiver deadline), the Court schedules the petition for conference. The Court conferences petitions in batches, typically adding them to the next available conference on the schedule. SCOTUS has approximately 90 days from filing to decide whether to grant or deny certiorari. If the Court grants review, the case would be argued in the October 2026 term — likely late 2026 or early 2027 with a decision by June 2027. If the Court denies review for this petition, that is not a final answer on the merits: additional circuits that rule on the question (the Second Circuit has two Kalshi appeals pending; the Sixth Circuit has Michigan) would create additional petitions, and SCOTUS can take the case later. Denial of NJ's petition would simply mean the Court is not ready to resolve the question on this particular record at this particular time.
The SCOTUS probability on Polymarket settled at around 46% after an initial spike to 64% following the Ninth Circuit ruling. The recalibration from 64% to 46% reflects market participants adjusting their estimate of timing rather than ultimate resolution. The probability that SCOTUS takes the case before year-end 2026 is genuinely uncertain — the Court's conference schedule, Kalshi's response time, and whether the Court sees an urgent need to resolve the split before additional circuits weigh in all affect the specific contract, which expires December 31. A longer-dated contract on 'will SCOTUS take the case by June 2027' would likely price significantly higher than 46%. The immediate question the Polymarket contract prices is whether the Court acts within its current October term's first conference cycle, which is a tighter window than the case's ultimate SCOTUS trajectory.
Legal observers have drawn a comparison to New Jersey's earlier SCOTUS battle over PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act), which banned state-authorized sports betting. NJ lost that case at SCOTUS in Christie v. NCAA (2009) — but Congress repealed PASPA before SCOTUS revisited the issue, and when NJ ultimately challenged PASPA again in Murphy v. NCAA, the Court struck it down in 2018, enabling legal sports betting across the US. The parallel is instructive: NJ has a track record of litigating to the Supreme Court on state gambling authority questions and eventually prevailing on the underlying policy question even when the immediate legal battle is lost or stalls. Whether the Court takes NJ's prediction market petition now or the question arrives via a later petition from a different state, the Polymarket/Kalshi regulatory structure — binary contracts on sports outcomes offered on a CFTC-licensed exchange — will eventually receive a SCOTUS answer. NJ is attempting to accelerate that timeline.
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