Missouri AG orders six prediction platforms to halt sports contracts
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued cease-and-desist letters on Monday, September 21, 2026 ordering six prediction market platforms to stop offering sports event contracts in the state. The targeted platforms are Polymarket, Kalshi, Robinhood, Crypto.com, Novig, and Underdog. The letters argue the companies' activities violate Missouri state law. The action deepens the conflict between state gaming authorities and federally registered prediction market operators.
Polymarket, Kalshi, and Robinhood must now geofence Missouri or mount a seventh state-level defense they did not choose. Each new front splits legal budgets and multiplies the risk that one adverse ruling becomes a template for copycat attorneys general. The preemption shield that protected CFTC-registered platforms is now under assault in Missouri, Connecticut, and Nevada simultaneously.
Traders hold positions whose legality shifts by state line, not by contract terms. Liquidity fragments as platforms retreat behind geofences to avoid contempt exposure. The first federal court to rule on preemption will set the compliance bar every competitor must clear; until then, the patchwork deepens and user trust erodes with every new shutdown order.
Missouri becomes the third state after Connecticut and Nevada to order multiple CFTC-registered platforms to halt sports event contracts, confirming that state attorneys general are coordinating a multi-front assault on the federal preemption shield.