Ohio Moves to Expand Legal Action Against Prediction Markets Offering Sports Contracts

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine says the state is prepared to take enforcement action against more prediction market operators offering sports-related contracts, not just issue warnings. For PSPs and platforms watching the high-risk perimeter, the point is simple: Ohio is testing whether federally regulated event contracts can still be treated as gambling under state law.

1. DeWine said Ohio should go after operators that offer sports-related prediction markets because, in his view, the products violate the state’s gambling laws. The Ohio Casino Control Commission has already sent cease-and-desist notices to several companies, including Kalshi, Polymarket and Robinhood.
2. The governor’s complaint is not only about the contracts themselves. He also raised concerns about prediction market advertising appearing during sporting events, and said the platforms appear to be trying to evade state supervision by operating under a different regulatory framework, according to The Statehouse News Bureau.
3. The core jurisdictional fight is over whether federal oversight can override state gambling rules. Kalshi says its event contracts are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not state gaming regulators, while Ohio officials argue the state’s gambling laws still apply to agreements tied to sporting events no matter how the platforms label them.
4. A federal court recently ruled that Kalshi must comply with Ohio law. Kalshi has challenged that ruling and says federal oversight should prevail, setting up a legal test for how far states can go in restricting sports-related contracts offered by federally regulated platforms.
5. Ohio lawmakers have also put two bills on the table. Senate Bill 479 would ban betting on elections and bar prediction market websites from offering election contracts, while Senate Bill 430 would treat sporting event contracts as sports gambling and bring them under state regulation and taxation. Neither proposal has gained much traction so far.

The dispute has been building since October 5, when DeWine warned Ohio would invoke its gambling laws against Kalshi. It has also drawn attention from gambling harm prevention experts: in September, Derek Longmeier of the Problem Gambling Network of Ohio said prediction markets could expose younger adults to gambling because users can start at age 18, while the legal age for traditional sports betting in Ohio is 21.