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The state's chief legal officer, who on 23 April 2026 filed three public nuisance actions in Dane County against Kalshi, Polymarket and Crypto.com and against Robinhood and Coinbase as the brokers that distribute their contracts. Wisconsin is the only state where a federal court has so far refused the CFTC an injunction against that enforcement.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is led by an elected attorney general, Josh Kaul since 2019, and enforces the state's commercial gambling statute at Wis. Stat. section 945.03(1m) through public nuisance actions under sections 823.01 and 823.02. Its three complaints of 23 April 2026 allege that sports-related event contracts are bets and that accepting, recording or forwarding them for gain is commercial gambling, irrespective of a federal designation; the relief sought is a declaration and preliminary and permanent injunctions restraining the companies from offering those contracts to customers located in Wisconsin. The department's distinguishing move on this beat was to name the distribution layer at the outset: the Kalshi complaint names Robinhood Markets, Robinhood Derivatives, Robinhood Securities, Coinbase Global and Coinbase Financial Markets alongside the venue, four months before the City of Baltimore did the same thing in Maryland. Three of those state court actions were removed to the Western District of Wisconsin, where motions to remand are pending, and the United States and the CFTC sued the state in the Eastern District on 28 April. The Division of Gaming, which regulates licensed gambling and whose administrator is a co-defendant in the exchanges' federal suits, sits in the Department of Administration rather than in the Department of Justice.
Developments in which Wisconsin Attorney General is a named party, newest first.
The newest federally designated prediction market filed its fifth suit against a state attorney general in eleven days, and this one is in the state where a federal judge refused the CFTC the same relief on 28 July and said the exchanges were the…
Ludlow Exchange, trading as Novig, filed a 45 page complaint in the Western District of Wisconsin on 14 August 2026 seeking a declaration that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts the state's gambling statutes. It is its fifth suit against a state officer since 4 August, and it follows a federal court in the same state refusing the CFTC the same relief on 28 July.
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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