A lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Adrian Vazquez, Alexander Foley and Nicholas Ross. The complaint alleges that Kalshi allowed external companies to intercept users’ communications and platform activity without consent. The plaintiffs seek to represent all individuals who used Kalshi’s digital platforms and whose data was allegedly intercepted or disclosed.
Kalshi operates an online marketplace where users trade binary event contracts tied to real‑world outcomes. Contracts cover topics ranging from entertainment and politics to international affairs, and user activity can reveal personal interests, predictions, risk tolerance and financial results.
Users provide extensive personal and financial information to create and fund accounts, including identity verification data. Because the platform’s activity resembles wagering, users have a heightened expectation that their information and trades remain private.
The complaint states that Kalshi embedded third‑party scripts, pixels and tracking technologies across its digital platforms. Companies such as Google, TikTok and LinkedIn could monitor users as they browsed markets, viewed event contracts and placed trades.
Through these tracking mechanisms, third parties were able to capture browsing activity, pages viewed, contracts reviewed, account interactions and trades or attempted trades. The monitoring extended to detailed user actions on the platform.
The lawsuit alleges that Kalshi employed more than 60 distinct third‑party trackers, including technologies linked to Google, Meta, HypeLab and Rokt. Four of these trackers recorded information during trade execution, transmitting market selection, contract type, order details, device identifiers, browser data and approximate location.
Submitted screenshots purportedly show data being sent to Amplitude, LinkedIn, TikTok and AppLovin during the trade‑submission process. The transmitted data included trading‑related details and user identifiers.
The complaint asserts that Kalshi benefited commercially from the practice, using tracker data to refine advertising, lower customer‑acquisition costs, boost trading activity, generate revenue and receive cash payments from the third parties receiving the data.
The lawsuit also challenges Kalshi’s user‑consent process. Registration required only an acknowledgment of legal terms, with a hyperlink lacking visual cues, allowing users to complete accounts without actively accepting the terms or privacy policy.
The privacy suit joins a series of recent legal challenges against Kalshi. State lawsuits have alleged that the company’s sports‑related event contracts constitute illegal, unlicensed betting rather than permissible prediction markets.
Proposed class actions in Oregon and Alabama claim the contracts function as prohibited wagers and seek damages, restitution, declaratory relief and a jury trial for consumers who lost money on the platform.
Kalshi maintains that its products are financial derivatives regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, arguing that federal commodities law—not state gambling statutes—governs its exchange.
Some gambling‑related lawsuits also target Kalshi’s affiliated market makers, alleging they take the opposite side of customer trades. Kalshi describes those claims as misunderstandings of how regulated exchanges operate.
Regulatory scrutiny has emerged in several states, including Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington, where authorities have challenged or restricted sports event contracts offered by prediction‑market operators.
Kalshi has not yet filed a response to the privacy complaint. The company’s silence leaves the allegations unresolved pending further litigation.
