Charleston man sues DraftKings and Polymarket over South Carolina sports betting ban
A Charleston man sued DraftKings and Polymarket on July 29, alleging both platforms violate South Carolina's century-old sports betting ban by offering their products in the state. The complaint names both platforms as defendants. The suit does not hinge on CFTC registration status; it treats the products as illegal gambling under state law.
Private litigation now runs parallel to state attorney general actions, and platforms cannot resolve it through federal regulatory dialogue. DraftKings and Polymarket face the same gambling-ban theory in both South Carolina and California, with no CFTC-registration shield against state-court claims. A plaintiff win would produce a template for copycat filings in every state with a similar ban.
Platforms must now defend product design against both contract-market and gambling-law characterizations at once. Legal budgets fragment further, and geofencing decisions shift from regulatory risk to damages exposure. The first verdict will set the settlement calculus that shapes the entire plaintiff-bar strategy.