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The Michigan regulator of the three Detroit commercial casinos, internet gaming and sports betting, whose 2025 enforcement threats against platforms carrying event contracts prompted Coinbase to sue and which was itself dismissed from that suit on sovereign immunity grounds on 6 August 2026.
The Michigan Gaming Control Board implements and enforces the Michigan Gaming Control and Revenue Act, Public Act 69 of 1997, MCL 432.201 et seq, which governs the licensing, regulation and conduct of casino gaming in the City of Detroit. Its remit covers the three Detroit casinos, MGM Grand Detroit, MotorCity Casino and Hollywood Casino at Greektown; the licensing and regulation of internet gaming and sports betting operators, platform providers and suppliers, and of fantasy contests; pari-mutuel horse racing and casino-style charitable gaming; and audits of the tribal gaming compacts covering Michigan's twelve federally recognised tribes. Its executive director is Henry Williams, appointed in 2021, and James H. Townsend was appointed chair with effect from 1 August 2026. The instrument that matters for event contracts is the Lawful Sports Betting Act of 2019, under which internet sports betting may be offered only by a licensed commercial casino or a federally recognised tribe. The board issued enforcement threats in 2025 against operators facilitating access to prediction markets in the state and wrote to the CFTC about the risks of unlicensed sports event contracts, and those actions are the credible threat on which Coinbase's federal suit was founded.
Developments in which Michigan Gaming Control Board is a named party, newest first.
A federal judge in Detroit refused to stop Michigan enforcing its sports betting law against Coinbase, finding that sports event contracts are probably not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and that, even if they were, the Act does not displace…
Judge Shalina D. Kumar of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied Coinbase Financial Markets a preliminary injunction on 6 August 2026, holding that sports event contracts are probably not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act and that the Act preempts Michigan's gambling laws neither expressly nor by implication. The Gaming Control Board was dismissed on Eleventh Amendment grounds.
What issued, what settled, what the supervisors changed, with the numbers behind it and a note on what the numbers do not show. One email, Thursday mornings.
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