Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said Thursday, November 12, that she had filed a lawsuit against 10 prediction-market businesses, including Kalshi, Robinhood, Polymarket, Coinbase and Crypto.com, seeking to stop what the state considers unlawful event-contract wagering. The announcement moves a dispute already being fought in federal court toward a broader challenge involving multiple trading platforms.
Murrill also named ForecastEx, Novig, Underdog, Gemini and ProphetX. In a post on X, she said she would seek immediate restraining and injunctive relief against activity she argues violates Louisiana law. Her allegations have not been adjudicated, and a copy of the new state complaint was not independently available for review at publication. No order granting the requested restrictions has been verified.
Some defendants have already gone to court over the same underlying issue. Kalshi filed a federal action against Louisiana officials on October 23, while Polymarket’s U.S. exchange filed its own case on October 27. Both argued that federal commodities regulation limits the state’s ability to treat sports event contracts as illegal gambling. Those cases predate Murrill’s November 12 announcement and are not evidence that courts have endorsed either side.
Louisiana is seeking emergency action against sports contracts
Louisiana regulators have warned about sports-related event contracts since December 2025. The state’s Gaming Control Board told licensed sportsbooks that products allowing users to stake money on sporting outcomes could be illegal gambling even when structured as contracts listed on a federally regulated derivatives exchange.
The state gained additional enforcement tools this year. Under Louisiana’s online-gambling remedies statute, effective August 1, its attorney general can seek injunctions to restrain specified prohibited activity. Possible relief includes blocking access to a website or freezing accounts associated with the activity. The law provides mechanisms for such orders; their availability does not mean a judge has already granted them against the newly named platforms.
The state argues that sports event contracts operate like unlicensed sports betting and allow platforms to avoid safeguards, licensing costs and taxes that apply to regulated sportsbooks. Operators dispute that characterization. The announcement does not establish the value of Louisiana transactions, the amount of any allegedly unpaid tax or the precise economic exposure of each firm.
Kalshi reportedly made a further emergency court request in response to the expected action. It already has a pending federal case, KalshiEX LLC v. Murrill, in the Western District of Louisiana, case number 1:26-cv-04476. A new request for temporary relief in an existing case is different from a court issuing a restraining order, and the latest filing and any ruling could not be independently confirmed from the accessible docket records.
Platforms argue federal oversight preempts state gambling law
Robinhood said its event contracts are offered through its CFTC-registered derivatives business and fall under federal supervision. Kalshi has advanced a similar position, arguing that the Commodity Exchange Act grants the Commodity Futures Trading Commission exclusive authority over contracts traded on designated contract markets.
Louisiana’s position is that an exchange’s federal registration does not by itself authorise unlicensed sports gambling inside the state. A central question for judges is whether the contracts qualify as swaps under federal law and, if so, whether Congress displaced state rules governing sports wagers.
Courts have not reached a uniform answer. The Third Circuit sided with Kalshi at the preliminary-injunction stage in a New Jersey case in April. The Ninth Circuit later ruled against the exchange’s attempt to block Nevada regulation, and the Sixth Circuit also rejected Kalshi’s preemption argument in litigation involving Ohio and Tennessee. Those decisions arise from seperate cases and procedural records, not one nationwide final judgment.
DaveFinances covered Kalshi’s Nevada appellate setback in August. The split in how federal courts interpret the jurisdictional boundary explains why companies keep seeking emergency protection rather than waiting for the full merits of each dispute to be decided.
Federal authorities have also sued a number of states in support of their asserted jurisdiction over registered event-contract markets. That is the CFTC’s litigation position, not a finding that every state sports-betting restriction is invalid. The Supreme Court has received petitions in the broader dispute but has not yet agreed to decide a prediction-market case.
Ten named firms broaden Louisiana’s potential reach
The list Murrill provided spans exchanges, broker-facing distribution businesses and sports-focused prediction platforms. The precise legal entities named, the claims directed at each and whether the state is seeking identical relief against them cannot be confirmed without the new complaint. Treating every company as having the same role would obscure important differences in how customers access the contracts.
The approach differs from Utah’s October lawsuit against Kalshi and Susquehanna-linked market makers, which explicitly pursued both the trading venue and professional counterparties. Utah also calculated a disputed $30.6 million to $61.2 million range in platform fees allegedly linked to its residents. Louisiana has not supplied an equivalent verified revenue estimate in the announcement reviewed here.
If an injunction were eventually granted and upheld, firms might have to restrict eligible customers or certain contract categories, with potential effects on trading volume and fee revenue. But no statewide shutdown across the ten businesses has been established, and the reported request should not be confused with an order already affecting customers.
There is a further operational issue: keeping existing trades valid while restricting new ones. In Michigan, the CFTC challenged an attempt to unwind Kalshi contracts after state intervention. That dispute showed why limiting new market access can be legally and operationally seperate from cancelling positions already entered into.
Louisiana’s new initiative, as described by Murrill, is an attempt to expand enforcement beyond a single exchange. The pending federal cases will test the claimed conflict between state gambling law and national derivatives oversight. For now, the state says it has filed suit and wants emergency relief; the actual complaint, any restrictions specific to each defendant and any subsequent court orders remain the documents needed to measure the immediate impact.
Johan Shamshad is Editor-in-Chief at Dave Finances, covering financial markets, digital assets, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, payments and regulation. Since 2023, he has also worked as an editor at Gulf News, the UAE English-language newspaper published by Al Nisr Publishing LLC. His work focuses on market-moving developments, company disclosures, regulatory changes and trading infrastructure, with an emphasis on primary-source verification and practical context for traders and investors.