Missouri AG Orders Six Prediction Market Platforms to Halt Sports Contracts
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announced this week that her office has sent cease-and-desist letters to six prediction market platforms — Polymarket, Kalshi, Crypto.com, Novig, Underdog, and Robinhood — telling them to stop offering sports-related event contracts to Missouri residents or risk legal action. The letters, issued around September 18, argue that these contracts amount to unlicensed sports wagering under state law, regardless of how the platforms classify the products federally.
What the AG's office is arguing
Hanaway's position rests on Amendment 2, the sports-wagering measure Missouri voters approved in November 2024, which gives the Missouri Gaming Commission regulatory authority over sports betting in the state and led to the state's licensed sportsbook market launching in December 2025. Her office contends that sports event contracts offered by prediction-market platforms function the same way a sports bet does for the person placing it, and that companies offering them to Missouri residents need a state gaming license, must pay the required tax on revenue, and must verify that users are at least 21 — the same obligations licensed sportsbooks already carry. Hanaway rejected the platforms' typical defense that these products are federally regulated financial instruments exempt from state gambling law, stating that federal law does not preempt Missouri's authority in this area.
Why it matters to bettors
Missouri becomes the latest in a growing list of states — including Connecticut, New Jersey, Nevada, and others — where state officials have moved against prediction-market sports contracts this year, adding to an unresolved patchwork of state-by-state fights playing out alongside separate federal court cases and CFTC review. For a Missouri resident using one of these six platforms, the near-term outcome is uncertain: the AG's letters set no formal compliance deadline but say noncompliance will lead to legal action, meaning access to these contracts in the state could be curtailed or contested in court in the coming months. The dispute also underscores a broader theme for anyone following the space — where you can legally place a sports-outcome wager, and through which type of platform, remains in flux state by state rather than settled nationally.