State Attorney General Ken Paxton has built a career pursuing gambling operators in Texas, from fantasy sports platforms to gaming machines. But according to new Politico reporting, when it came to the prediction market platform Kalshi, Paxton stayed silent—after Kalshi and its CEO donated to his campaign.
Politico reports that, in May 2025, Kalshi donated $5,000 to Paxton’s Lone Star Liberty PAC. A month later, on June 13, Paxton’s US Senate campaign accepted $7,000 from Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour.
Four days after that donation, 34 Republican and Democratic state attorneys general asked a federal appeals court to affirm states’ authority to regulate Kalshi. Paxton didn’t join them. He also declined to sign onto a separate amicus brief filed by 38 states and Washington, DC in a related case between Kalshi and Maryland.
Kalshi and its rival Polymarket have exploded in popularity over the past two years by allowing users to bet on everything from sports outcomes to elections. The platforms insist they are federally regulated financial exchanges, rather than gambling operations. That question is now working its way through the courts and is expected to eventually reach the US Supreme Court.
Politico notes the contrast with Paxton’s earlier record: A decade agoen, Paxton determined fantasy sports platforms DraftKings and FanDuel were taking illegal bets, sparking a legal fight that DraftKings recently dropped. Texas remains one of fewer than a dozen states that still outlaw online sports betting.
A spokesperson for Paxton’s Senate campaign declined to comment to Politico, and the Texas attorney general’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Lone Star Liberty PAC spokesman Gregg Keller defended Paxton’s record to Politico, saying he has “fought at every turn to protect Texas men, women, and children, and hold big corporations accountable, from Google to Big Food and the cosmetics industry.” Mansour did not respond to Politico’s request for comment, but a Kalshi spokesperson issued a statement defending the company’s engagement with officials nationally.
Read the full report at Politico.
