Why a venue is unavailable where you are

How it works

There are two layers, and a reader who merges them goes looking for the answer in the wrong document.

The lower layer is what the venue does at your screen: a location check, a clause you agreed to, a payment rail that will not carry your money, or a state the venue has removed from its app. That layer decides whether you can trade today, and it can change on a notice the venue sends to itself.

The upper layer is who gets to decide whether a contract may be offered to you at all — the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under the Commodity Exchange Act, or a state gaming regulator under state law. Two federal appellate courts have now answered that question in opposite directions, both of them provisionally, and a third document — a proposed CFTC rule whose comment period has closed — would answer part of it by regulation instead.

The federal layer, in two decisions that disagree

The statutory question — whether these contracts are swaps, and so within the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction — has its own page here, in Event contract or swap. What matters for availability is narrower, and it is this.

Third Circuit, 6 April 2026. KalshiEX, LLC v. Flaherty, No. 25-1922, before Chief Judge Chagares and Judges Porter and Roth, decided 2–1 with Judge Roth dissenting. New Jersey had sent Kalshi a cease-and-desist letter over sports-related event contracts, the district court enjoined enforcement, and the court of appeals affirmed, holding that Kalshi "has demonstrated a reasonable chance of success" on preemption and that "both field and conflict preemption apply" (opinion).

Ninth Circuit, 28 August 2026. KalshiEX, LLC v. Assad, No. 25-7516, argued 16 April 2026, filed for publication, opinion by Judge R. Nelson with a concurrence by Judge Lee. Here the district court had dissolved a preliminary injunction against the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Commission and Kalshi was the appellant — a procedural detail reported backwards often enough to be worth holding on to. The panel affirmed in part, concluding that the broad reading of the swap definition "is not the best textual reading in context, does not square with the statutory scheme, does not have a limiting principle, and would raise concerns under the major-questions doctrine", and remanded for the district court to consider Nevada's challenges to Kalshi's election contracts (opinion). The CFTC appeared in that appeal as amicus curiae, through its own Deputy General Counsel for Litigation.

What neither decision did

Both courts were reviewing a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion, and both were deciding how likely a party was to win later. The Third Circuit spells out the threshold it was applying: a moving party must show "a reasonable chance, or probability, of winning", where reasonable "does not mean more likely than not" but does mean "significantly better than negligible."

So neither opinion is a judgment on the merits, neither holds that these contracts are lawful or unlawful anywhere, and neither reaches beyond its own circuit — the Third covers Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Virgin Islands, the Ninth covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and the Pacific territories, and no appellate court has spoken about any other state. An injunction runs against the named officials who were sued. When one is dissolved — as Nevada's was, and as the Ninth Circuit affirmed — the state's enforcement is simply no longer enjoined. That is why a venue's availability map can change without anything being decided.

New Jersey filed a petition for certiorari on 2 September 2026, docketed 8 September 2026 as No. 26-299, after two extensions granted by Justice Alito. The question presented asks whether Dodd-Frank preempted states from regulating sports contracts offered on CFTC-registered markets. Kalshi's brief in opposition was due 8 October 2026, and on 18 September 2026 its counsel submitted a request under Rule 30.4 for a 30-day extension, to 9 November 2026. As this page was last checked there was no grant, no denial and no conference distribution on the docket.

The CFTC's proposal, and the paragraph in it about states

Two documents sit under RIN 3038-AF65 and are routinely collapsed into one. The first is an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, Prediction Markets, published 16 March 2026 at 91 FR 12516, comments closed 30 April 2026; it asked questions and proposed no text. The second is a notice of proposed rulemaking, Prediction Markets; Public Interest Determinations, issued by the Commission on 10 June 2026 and published 12 June 2026 at 91 FR 35806, comments closed 27 July 2026. What its definitions would do to the listing question is covered on the swap page; one paragraph belongs here instead.

The proposal would add an appendix F to part 40 of the Commission's regulations, and paragraph (b)(2) of it addresses exactly the patchwork this page is about. Where an activity "is illegal under the laws of some States, but not others", the Commission would weigh that discrepancy among the factors deciding whether an event contract involves unlawful activity; it separately acknowledges state laws that are "generally considered archaic and are not enforced." That is a federal agency proposing to take account of the state-by-state map — not to replace it, and not to publish it.

A proposed rule is a proposal. Nothing in it binds anyone until a final rule is published, and the Commission's own voting summary records the proposal approved on one vote, the Chairman's, with no Commissioner voting against. Check the Federal Register under the same RIN before treating any of it as law.

The four restrictions that get called one word

"Not available in your state" is used for four mechanisms that fail at different moments, are found in different documents, and are undone in different ways. Tell them apart before you go looking for a workaround, because three of the four have none.

1. A check on where you physically are. Polymarket's geographic-restrictions help page, dated 14 August 2026, puts it under a heading about travelling: "Permissions are based on physical location rather than residency". That cuts both ways — a resident of a restricted country who travels may trade, and a resident of a permitted country abroad may not. It also does not define one status but several, and its blocked table and its close-only list overlap, so a country can appear twice.

Two things about this one are worth more than the country list itself. First, the operative list is not the one a reader finds: the Terms of Use define Restricted Jurisdictions by reference to the list published in the developer documentation, at a separate URL that carries no date at all and may be updated "without notice". The documentation's own grouping is finer than the help page's — a handful of sanctioned jurisdictions blocked on both the site and the API, and everything else close-only on the site, on the API, or on the site alone. Second, circumvention has a stated consequence rather than a warning: the Terms say a person in violation "may have their wallets placed in close-only mode" at the company's sole discretion.

2. A statement you make about yourself. Kalshi's member agreement makes jurisdiction a representation, warranty and covenant by you — "You hereby represent, warrant, and covenant to Kalshi that You are not domiciled in, organized in, or located in any jurisdiction in which trading Event Contracts on the Platform is prohibited" — and then names 55 of them, all countries and sanctioned territories. Nothing technical stops you, and the statement renews itself: the same section deems it made again each time you enter an order. The agreement also says, twice, that the restriction applies "solely to the trading of Event Contracts" and does not by itself prohibit membership on, or non-trading access to, the platform. Being able to log in and read prices is not evidence that you may trade.

The count is a date, not a fact. Kalshi amends the agreement unilaterally on notice under its own §VII.E, and its published notices show the list moving twice in ten weeks: 53 jurisdictions on 16 April 2026, 54 on 4 June 2026 when Portugal was added, and 55 on 22 June 2026 when India was. Each is effective from the date of the notice itself. The agreement PDF carries no effective date anywhere in its text — the copy read for this page is marked v1.6 — so the only honest way to quote a number from it is with the day you read it.

3. A payment rail that does not reach you. The slowest of the four to discover, because it sits behind a deposit. Kalshi serves users outside the United States — its help centre says so in an article dated 20 March 2026 — and in the same article says that ACH, PayPal and Venmo "are not available for international users", who deposit by debit card, wire or crypto and withdraw by debit card or crypto only. A crypto withdrawal additionally requires a prior crypto deposit. Polymarket's close-only status — the help page names Singapore, Poland, Thailand and Taiwan — lets you exit positions and open nothing new. Its country notes go further in one case: for Germany the page says trading is prohibited and "existing positions must be held until market resolution to redeem shares, after which funds can be withdrawn without restrictions." Eligibility to trade and eligibility to move money are different facts, and the second is the one that strands capital.

4. One state declined. Robinhood's help centre carries the restriction in two articles that do not say the same thing. The event-contracts overview says "Maryland residents can't trade sports event contracts"; the restrictions article says "Maryland residents can't trade event contracts", with no sports qualifier. Both agree on Nevada — no new sports contracts, "(as of December 1, 2025)" — which is a close-only restriction rather than a block. Neither publishes the list of states where the product does work: the overview says to check the app for it. And the enforcement is on both facts at once, because the restrictions article's "stricter area" error fires when "you're currently in a restricted state (even if you don't live there)" or when your address on file does not match where you are.

Four different failure points: before registration, at the moment you press trade, after your money is in, and at account approval. A reader who knows which one they are facing knows which document to read and whether waiting changes anything.

One venue can also run two of them at once, and the two need not have the same scope. Polymarket enforces on physical location, while the representation in its Terms reaches anyone residing in, a citizen of, organized in or located in a restricted jurisdiction — the contract is wider than the check. Passing the check is not the same as being permitted.

Where the state lists actually come from

Lists of "banned states" circulate widely and are attributed to the exchanges. They do not come from the exchanges.

No Kalshi document restricts a US state, and it is worth saying exactly what was read to establish that, because the lists circulating online are attributed to exactly those documents. On the date at the top of this page: the member agreement and the Klear self-clearing member agreement in full; three rulebooks; and every one of the 503 PDFs in Kalshi's public regulatory notices store, searched as full text rather than by title. In the agreements and the rulebooks the only US states named are Delaware and New York, for incorporation and governing law. In the notices states appear constantly, and never as a restriction on residents: they are the subjects of contracts — a hurricane reaching New Jersey, a Senate seat in Ohio, the opening day at a Montana ski resort — or they are conduct rules barring categories of people from contracts they would have inside knowledge of, such as staff of a named governor's office or players of a named college team. Those bar people and describe subjects. None of them bars a place.

The nearest thing to a state restriction in Kalshi's own writing is about money, not eligibility: its help centre says PayPal and Venmo are for US users only and "may not be available in all states". That is payment-processor coverage — restriction three above, wearing the costume of restriction four.

What does exist is state regulators' orders, each with a named issuer and a date. The Nevada Gaming Control Board's statement of 14 March 2025 records that it sent a cease-and-desist order to KalshiEX LLC on 4 March 2025, and that the Board did not object to a limited extension of time for the company to respond. The Third Circuit's opinion records New Jersey's cease-and-desist letter, sent two months after Kalshi began listing sports-related event contracts in January 2025, threatening "any measures available under New Jersey law" — with violations punishable as crimes of the fourth degree subject to fines up to $100,000 under N.J. Stat. Ann. §§ 5:12A-11(c) and 2C:43-2.

So a state list is a map of enforcement actions and of the injunctions answering them, kept by neither the exchanges nor any federal agency. It moves when an order issues, when an injunction is entered, and when one is dissolved — three events that produce no release note and no email. The federal side has not consolidated it either: the closest thing is the proposed appendix F paragraph above, which treats state-by-state illegality as a factor the Commission would weigh, not as a list it would publish.

What you can do about it

Work out which of the four you are facing. If you cannot reach the trading interface at all, it is a location check. If you can see prices but the terms name your country, it is a representation you would be making. If you are funded and stuck, it is a rail or a close-only status. If your account was refused at approval, it is a state decision at the broker.

Read the venue's own current document, and find out which one is operative. The card for each venue in this catalogue names where its list lives and the date we last read it: Kalshi (member agreement, plus its exchange notices for amendments), Polymarket (terms of use, a help-centre article, and the developer-docs list the terms actually incorporate — three documents, and they do not agree), Polymarket US and Robinhood (two help articles that differ on Maryland, and an in-app list published nowhere else). Where a venue's own documents disagree, the one its terms point at governs, and the narrower one is the safe assumption.

Ask the four questions before you deposit, in this order. Is the restriction on location or on residency? Is it enforced technically or by a statement you sign? Which funding rails are open to someone in your country, and which withdrawal rails? And is there a close-only or hold-to-resolution status that could apply to you later, even if nothing applies now?

Check the exit before the entrance. The rail that funds an account is often not the rail that empties it, and a status change can leave positions that must be held to resolution. That is a cost in locked capital, not in fees, and it is invisible until it applies.

Re-check, on the documents rather than on the news. Four things move this page's subject and none of them announce themselves to users: a venue amending its agreement on its own notice; a state regulator issuing or withdrawing an order; a court entering, dissolving or affirming the dissolution of an injunction; and the CFTC publishing a final rule under RIN 3038-AF65. The pace is the argument: one venue's restricted-jurisdiction list moved twice in the ten weeks between 16 April and 22 June 2026, each time by a notice effective the day it appeared. A check made once is a check made about a document that has since been amended. The Supreme Court petition in No. 26-299 is on the docket with a brief in opposition due 8 October 2026, or 9 November 2026 if the extension requested on 18 September 2026 is granted — and note that a grant of certiorari would not change any venue's terms by itself, while a denial would leave two circuits disagreeing.

If your jurisdiction is closed, take the narrow route rather than the workaround. Reading access is permitted on both of the big venues even where trading is not, the public data APIs — Polymarket Gamma API, Kalshi API — answer market-data requests without an account, and the scored forecasting platforms in this catalogue, Metaculus and Good Judgment Open, settle in points rather than money, which puts them outside the regime this page describes — their own terms are still worth reading. Circumvention is the one action with a documented penalty attached: on Polymarket a detected VPN puts the account into close-only mode, and on a venue where jurisdiction is a warranty you signed, the consequence of being wrong is yours.