Ohio Sends Cease-and-Desist Letters to 10 Prediction Market Firms

Ohio has sent cease-and-desist letters to ten prediction market firms, demanding an immediate stop to offering or facilitating sports event contracts to people located in the state, according to the Ohio Casino Control Commission’s October 2 notices. The letters require written confirmation of compliance by October 16, 2026; that date is a response deadline, not a two-week window to continue operating.

Which ten firms received Ohio’s notices?

The commission’s packet covers Coinbase, Gemini, Moomoo, Novig, Plus500, Polymarket, Prophet X, Robinhood, Underdog and Webull. Those consumer-facing names do not always match the legal recipients. The Novig and Underdog notices each address two entities. The Polymarket letter is addressed to PM US Tech (QC Tech LLC).

The mix matters because the action reaches beyond exchanges that list contracts. It also targets firms that provide customer access or facilitate transactions, showing that the demand covers exchanges and the businesses connecting users with them.

What the cease-and-desist letters require

The commission treats the sports contracts described in its letters as sports gaming requiring an Ohio license. It alleges that the recipients are offering or facilitating that activity without the required authorization. Ohio Revised Code Section 3775.03 provides the state licensing requirement; the letters are enforcement demands, not criminal convictions.

The operative instruction is to “immediately cease and desist.” The letters cover offering, participating in offering, or facilitating those who offer sports event contracts, including soliciting or accepting orders from people in Ohio for contracts listed on exchanges known as designated contract markets. They also cover operating such an exchange or a futures commission merchant, an intermediary handling customer orders, that offers those contracts to people located in Ohio.

A separate instruction requires written confirmation within 14 days of the October 2 letters. That makes October 16 the compliance-confirmation deadline.

All ten letters warn that failure to comply may lead to administrative, civil, nuisance or criminal action. Nine also describe a possible civil penalty or fine, including an amount equal to the money or the value of property the commission alleges was unlawfully obtained or retained through Ohio sports event contracts. Robinhood’s renewed notice does not repeat that financial-penalty provision. These are threatened remedies; the packet does not announce that any penalty has been imposed.

Robinhood’s notice renews an earlier demand

Robinhood Derivatives, LLC received a different form of letter. The commission reasserted its March 31, 2025 cease-and-desist notice and said enforcement had been held pending court proceedings. Its October 2 letter renews the demand for immediate compliance after the Sixth Circuit’s latest ruling.

Kalshi and Crypto.com, which received Ohio’s March 2025 notices alongside Robinhood, are not recipients of the October 2 letters. That absence should not be read as an exemption, a new license or confirmation that either company’s sports contracts may lawfully continue in Ohio. The new notices identify their own recipients; they do not resolve every company’s position.

The court decision behind Ohio’s renewed enforcement

On September 25, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of Kalshi’s request for a preliminary injunction in Ohio. It also vacated a preliminary injunction in the related Tennessee appeal and sent the cases back for further proceedings. The Ohio result followed the district court’s March 9 decision, covered in Dyutam’s reporting on Ohio’s earlier ruling against Kalshi.

The appeals court concluded that Kalshi had not shown its sports event contracts met the statutory definition of swaps, a category of financial contract central to its federal-law argument. It also concluded that, even assuming they were swaps, the Commodity Exchange Act did not expressly or implicitly displace the relevant state laws. The decision addressed preliminary-injunction appeals; the underlying cases continue in the district courts.

Federal regulators take the opposite position

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission argued in a May 12 brief in Kalshi’s Sixth Circuit appeal that its exclusive jurisdiction prevents Ohio from applying state gambling laws to contracts traded on federally regulated exchanges. Dyutam’s June coverage examines the CFTC’s proposed sports prediction market rules. It is the federal regulator’s legal argument, not a ruling overriding the October letters.

Courts have also reached different results at the preliminary-injunction stage. The Third Circuit upheld protection for Kalshi against New Jersey enforcement on April 6, as explained in Dyutam’s coverage of Kalshi’s earlier Third Circuit victory. That decision does not reverse the Sixth Circuit’s Ohio ruling. The Ninth Circuit, by contrast, affirmed the dissolution of Kalshi’s Nevada preliminary injunction on August 28.

What remains unconfirmed for Ohio customers

The letters establish what the commission demanded. They do not establish when each recipient changed access, blocked new orders or sent instructions to customers. The source review for this article, completed October 5 UTC, did not verify company-specific responses to these notices covering existing positions, settlement, refunds or withdrawals.

Receipt of a notice therefore cannot be treated as proof of an operational shutdown.

FAQs

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Sources

• October 2, 2026 combined cease-and-desist letters — Ohio Casino Control Commission, document hosted by AVC Communications.
• September 25, 2026 opinion in the Ohio and Tennessee Kalshi appeals — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
• May 12, 2026 amicus brief in Kalshi’s Ohio appeal — Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
• April 6, 2026 Kalshi v. Flaherty opinion — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
• April 16, 2025 commission meeting minutes — Ohio Casino Control Commission.
• March 31, 2025 reporting on Ohio’s initial notices — Hannah News Service.