Ohio Gives Sports Betting Licensees Until Oct. 30 to Cut Ties With Prediction Markets

Ohio's gaming regulator has given every company that holds or is applying for a sports-betting or fantasy-contest license until October 30, 2026 to confirm it has stopped supporting prediction-market platforms that offer sports contracts, such as Kalshi and Polymarket. Andromeda Morrison, interim executive director of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, confirmed the notice at the commission's October 21 meeting, saying the state will "vigorously defend" its sports-gaming laws.

The notice reaches further than just the prediction-market companies themselves: it covers any Ohio-licensed sportsbook, fantasy operator, supplier, vendor, key employee, testing lab, or integrity monitor that does business with one, plus anyone with a license application pending. The commission says it has heard reports of licensees providing these platforms with liquidity, market-making, integrity monitoring, or equipment and data services, and it's treating that support as a license-suitability issue that could trigger a review or put a license at risk of suspension or revocation. Offering sports gaming without an Ohio license is a felony under state law.

This builds on cease-and-desist letters the commission already sent October 2 to ten companies - Coinbase, Gemini, Moomoo Financial, Novig, Plus500US, Polymarket, ProphetX, Robinhood, Underdog Predict, and Webull Financial - with an October 16 compliance deadline that, per local reporting, most of the ten missed. Kalshi wasn't on that list because it's already in litigation: the Sixth Circuit ruled against the company September 25, finding it hadn't shown its sports contracts qualify as CFTC-exclusive "swaps," and that federal commodities law doesn't preempt Ohio's gambling statute even if they did. Polymarket's U.S. arm, QCX, sued Ohio officials October 16 over the broader licensing demands.

We covered Ohio's threat to sue Kalshi and Polymarket directly back on October 21; this new notice is a separate escalation aimed at the state's own licensed operators rather than the prediction-market platforms, and it's worth watching for the same reason we track sweepstakes-casino payment-processor lawsuits - regulators going after everyone in a product's supply chain, not just the company whose name is on the app.