Ohio has begun taking enforcement action against prediction market companies just over a week after winning a key court decision.
- Polymarket, Novig, Underdog, Coinbase, ProphetX, and Robinhood are among the operators that received a letter.
- The state’s gaming regulator threatened civil penalties and fines for noncompliance.
- Ohio won a court decision Sept. 25, allowing the state to take action.
Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Casino Control Commission (OCCC) chair Thomas Stickrath sent cease-and-desist notices dated Oct. 2 to 10 operators facilitating sports event contracts, including Polymarket, Novig, Underdog, Coinbase, ProphetX, and Robinhood.
Kalshi was not among the companies that received a notice, but the Sixth Circuit ruled against the company in its lawsuit challenging Ohio’s authority to enforce its gambling laws. Gemini Titan, WeBull, Plus500, and MooMoo Financial were also among the cease-and-desist recipients, according to the letters obtained by YourRadioPlace.com.
Potential penalties
Operators have until Oct. 16 to comply with the notices.
Ohio officials state in the letters that failing to comply could result in the OCCC pursuing “all legal remedies and actions” against the prediction market operators. Noncompliance could result in civil penalties or fines “equal to the money or value of property” operators have obtained by offering sports event contracts, the commission said.
Kalshi, which sued Ohio in 2025, was fined $5 million by the Buckeye State in April.
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Winning the right
The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 25 that federal law does not preempt Ohio’s gaming laws as applied to sports event contracts, ruling against Kalshi. The court held that Kalshi’s sports event contracts do not qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act.
“These so-called prediction markets - which are really gambling, nothing more than that - they're just trying to get around the law, don't want to play by the same rules everybody else does, and they don't want to be regulated by the state. And we think that's wrong,” DeWine said after the court decision. “We think that they should have to abide by the same rules that everybody else has to abide by.”
Ohio’s gaming regulator told prediction market operators that their sports event contracts are not legally available in the state because the commission considers their offerings unlicensed "gaming and bookmaking," a felony under state law.
“The ultimate result is money being won or lost based on the outcome of a game or a team or player’s performance,” the OCCC wrote in the letter. “Plainly stated, (the prediction market company) is operating online sports gaming.”
Broader crackdown
Ohio is looking to join Michigan, Nevada, and Washington as states to restrict certain event contracts. Tennessee was included in the Sixth Circuit’s decision, allowing that jurisdiction to also take legal action against operators that offer sports event contracts there.
The Buckeye State has been offering and regulating sports betting since the start of 2023 and began taking action against prediction market sites in March 2025. A U.S. Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division judge denied Kalshi’s motion for a preliminary injunction in March.
As the battle between state regulators and operators dominates prediction market news, potential Supreme Court review looms over the industry.
