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Kalshi and Polymarket US filed federal suits against Missouri and Louisiana on the same day the CFTC sued Utah. The cases push the preemption fight into two states where licensed sportsbooks and casino partners stand to lose business to untaxed competitors.
Two more states now face prediction market operators in federal court. Kalshi’s case targets Missouri, while Polymarket US went after Louisiana. The CFTC filed its own suit against Utah that same day.
Kalshi is challenging a cease-and-desist demand from Missouri. The state told it to pull its sports event contracts or get a state sports betting license. Polymarket US filed as QCX LLC. It named Louisiana’s attorney general and the Louisiana Gaming Control Board as defendants.
Both companies make the same core argument. They say federal commodities law, the Commodity Exchange Act, overrides state gambling enforcement.
Missouri treats event contracts as unlicensed sports wagering
Missouri’s position is direct. The demand to Kalshi came from the office of Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, and Kalshi was not its only target.
The office says that offering sports event contracts in Missouri counts as unlicensed sports wagering. It also holds that federal law does not override state law here. In its view, sports event contracts are not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act. Companies “cannot repackage sports bets as event contracts” to get around Missouri law, Hanaway said.
The stakes for the licensed market are concrete. Sports wagering became legal in Missouri through Amendment 2. Oversight of the licensed books sits with the Missouri Gaming Commission.
The commission’s July 2026 revenue detail report shows the scale of that business. A prediction market selling sports contracts without a license would pay none of that tax. It would compete for the same customers as the licensed books.
Louisiana’s casino-first licensing faces a federal challenge
Louisiana’s regulated market works differently. Its licenses go first to in-state casinos. Untaxed sports contracts there would compete with those casinos and their sportsbook partners.
The Louisiana Gaming Control Board had already acted on the issue. In December 2025, it sent an advisory on prediction markets and event-based contracts. The advisory went to all sports wagering licensees and platform provider permittees.
That approach targets the licensed side of the market. Polymarket US’s suit now tests whether the state can reach the prediction market operators directly.
The federal regulator has taken a firm public line. The CFTC said Congress made it the only federal regulator responsible for overseeing prediction markets. Its Utah suit seeks to stop the state from using its own laws to shut down CFTC-registered contract markets. It followed civil enforcement actions that Utah brought in state court.
Federal appeals courts are already split on whether state gambling law can reach these contracts. The question is moving toward the Supreme Court. Each new filing adds pressure on states and operators alike.
Missouri’s dispute reaches well beyond Kalshi. Its cease-and-desist letters remain in play for Polymarket, Robinhood, Crypto.com, Novig and Underdog. The outcome could decide whether sports contracts are shut out of Missouri and Louisiana.
Sources
- (Louisiana Gaming Control Board)
- (Missouri Gaming Commission)
- (Missouri Attorney General's Office)
- (Commodity Futures Trading Commission)
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Caesars Digital's profit rose 57% in what is likely Caesars' last quarter as a public company, while Las Vegas profit fell and the group's net loss more than doubled. The online unit is earning more even as its estimated share of US online casino and sports betting shrinks.
Caesars Entertainment’s online arm grew profit in a quarter when much of the group went the other way. Caesars Digital’s revenue rose 4.8% to $326 million in the third quarter of 2026. The company held no earnings call because Fertitta Entertainment’s purchase is still pending. These are likely the last results Caesars will report as a public company.
Unlike the second quarter, this quarter brought year-over-year profit growth for the digital unit. Digital adjusted EBITDA had fallen in the second quarter to $68 million from $80 million a year before. In the first quarter, the segment set first-quarter records of $374 million in revenue and $69 million in adjusted EBITDA. Over the first nine months, digital adjusted EBITDA reached $181 million, up 19.9% from $151 million. Net revenue for the period climbed 6.3% to $1.051 billion from $989 million.
Higher profit has not translated into a bigger slice of the market. Citizens estimates Caesars now ranks fourth in US online casino, behind FanDuel, DraftKings and Rush Street Interactive’s BetRivers. Its share of US online sports betting handle slipped to 4.9% from 5.2% year over year. Its share of sports betting gross gaming revenue dropped to 3.6% from 4.1%.
The slide comes as US online casino growth slows overall. Some markets are still expanding at pace. New Jersey internet gaming win reached $274.8 million in September 2026, up 13.0% year over year. Year-to-date win there stood at $2.40 billion, up 13.2%. The Caesars figures are consistent with a business squeezing more profit from a smaller share of the market.
Las Vegas profit falls while the regional business grows
The Las Vegas segment’s net revenue dropped 2.3% to $930 million from $952 million. Its adjusted EBITDA fell from $379 million a year earlier. The Regional segment moved the other way. It grew net revenue 5.9% to $1.627 billion and adjusted EBITDA 3.6% to $524 million. Group adjusted EBITDA slipped to $865 million from $884 million. Total net revenue edged up 2.5% to $2.94 billion from $2.87 billion.
Deal costs are also showing up in the accounts. Caesars booked $12 million in merger-related transaction costs in the quarter and $22 million over nine months. Fertitta agreed on May 28, 2026, to pay $31.00 per share in cash. The deal is valued at about $17.6 billion, including roughly $11.9 billion of Caesars debt. The price is a 49% premium to the unaffected share price on Feb. 25, 2026. Holders of 70.3% of outstanding shares took part in the special meeting on the deal.
Closing still requires approval in every jurisdiction where Caesars runs gaming. Fertitta’s general counsel told a Nevada Gaming Control Board review in July that those approvals could take as long as 10 months.
Sources
- (Caesars Entertainment (SEC EDGAR))
- (New Jersey Office of Attorney General – Division of Gaming Enforcement)
- (SBC Americas)
- (iGaming Business)
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Online casino revenue in the United States is still climbing, but at the slowest pace analysts have tracked. New figures from Citizens put third-quarter iGaming growth at 12% over the same three months of 2025, the lowest rate on record and a step down from the 16% seen in the second quarter, .
Analysts quoted in the coverage said the slowdown was broadly expected. It also came with a slight late pickup: noted that September growth reached 12%, after 11% in August.
None of the big names changed places in the iGaming rankings, but most of them lost ground. FanDuel kept top spot with 25.1% of the market, compared with 26.6% a year earlier. DraftKings fell to 22.2% from 24.3% on an annual basis, although that figure was better than its 20.9% in the second quarter. According to Citizens, adjustments DraftKings made to its business model in the spring probably explain the rebound, and NEXT.io described it as the operator’s first quarter-on-quarter gain in two years.
BetMGM slipped to 18.6% from 20.7%, which marks six quarters of decline in a row. Caesars dropped to 6.4% from 7.1%.
Fanatics was the clear exception. Its share rose to 5.2% from 3.9%, the biggest improvement of any operator, though still a touch below the 5.4% it held in the second quarter. Rush Street Interactive moved up to 7.4% from 6.8%, and bet365 reached 1.7% from 0.4% after going live in Michigan and West Virginia. Citizens analysts said the boost from those launches, and from Hard Rock’s entry into the same two states, was starting to wear off.
Sports betting holds up despite prediction markets
The sportsbook side of the report looked steadier. Handle grew 7% in the quarter even with one fewer week of NFL games in the period, and gross gaming margin was flat year on year at 9.6%. Same-store handle in September rose 1%, its best monthly showing of 2026 outside the World Cup months of June and July.
DraftKings held 37.6% of handle, compared with 37.3% a year ago, to stay the largest sportsbook, with FanDuel at 32.8%, up from 31.4%. FanDuel’s share of gross gaming revenue fell to 35.4% from 37.7%, yet its 10.4% margin beat the 9.5% DraftKings achieved. Fanatics took 9.9% of handle, down from 11.2%, while lifting its revenue share to 8.8% from 7.3%. BetMGM’s margin improved to 10.2%, and Caesars’ fell to 6.9%.
Those numbers fit a view Citizens analyst Jordan Bender has put forward before: that prediction markets are not a major threat to licensed sportsbooks, and that their heavy advertising may be bringing new customers into sports wagering rather than taking existing ones away. That debate has been running all autumn, with and state regulators pushing back on sports event contracts.
The iGaming slowdown also lands as legal online casino markets keep posting large totals in absolute terms. In New Jersey, . Analysts expect sportsbook handle to rise in the fourth quarter as the NFL season continues.
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The National Council on Problem Gambling has put an outside turnaround specialist in charge while it looks for a permanent leader. Charles H. Jeffers II has taken over as interim executive director with immediate effect, the Washington-based nonprofit said in a .
The appointment comes one month after the council that executive director Heather Maurer was resigning. Maurer stayed on through October 16 to help with the handover, and the board said at the time that a national search for her successor had already started.
Permanent search pushed to January
That search now has a firmer timetable. According to board president Derek Longmeier, recruitment of a permanent chief starts in January 2027, with the executive search firm Vetted Solutions leading the process. In the meantime, Jeffers takes charge of strategic operations.
“As he navigates the leadership transition, he will be focused on operations aligned with strategy and transparency, and culture reflecting NCPG values,” Longmeier said in the statement.
Jeffers founded The Jeffers Group, a consultancy that places interim executives and advises boards on governance, strategy and organizational culture. NCPG credits him with more than 30 years of nonprofit leadership and consulting work. His earlier posts include a stint as the American Occupational Therapy Association’s interim executive director and a spell as CEO of the Bermuda Tourism Authority. He has an MPA from Georgia State University.
A busy year for the problem gambling council
The leadership change lands at a delicate moment for the group. Founded in 1972, NCPG describes itself as the only national nonprofit focused on reducing gambling harm, and it remains neutral on whether gambling should be legal. It also runs the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-MY-RESET.
The council has spent much of 2026 working out how to deal with products that sit outside traditional gambling regulation. In June it explained a new , aimed at areas such as financial trading platforms and prediction markets. In that letter, it said questions about legality, licensing and litigation were for regulators, lawmakers and the courts, not for NCPG.
The group has also asked prediction market operators to promote its helpline and filed comments with the CFTC on event contracts, as the federal regulator . At state level, rapid betting growth has stretched treatment services, with as one recent example.
NCPG did not say whether Jeffers will be a candidate for the permanent role. For now, the board has turned to a specialist in interim leadership to bridge the gap until that search gets underway.
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Plus500 now expects its 2026 revenue and EBITDA to beat what analysts had penciled in, after a third quarter in which its US futures and prediction markets arm kept growing. The London-listed trading group said so in its on Monday morning. Just over three weeks earlier, in a , the company had only said it was trading in line with expectations.
Revenue for the three months to September 30 came in at $203.2 million, an 11% rise on the $182.7 million booked a year ago. EBITDA grew 7% to $88.4 million, a 44% margin. Across the first nine months, revenue reached $666.1 million and EBITDA $275.9 million. Plus500 did not put a new number on its full-year outlook.
Prediction markets move into the core US offer
The part of the update most relevant to the event contract debate is the US business. Plus500 groups futures, options on futures and its prediction market products under what it calls non-OTC, as opposed to its traditional CFD business. That segment produced roughly 16% of group revenue and about 31% of new customers so far this year.
During the quarter, the company added CFTC-regulated prediction market contracts covering both sports and non-sports events, as well as single stock futures. It also signed two international B2B partners, Wealthsimple and Nelogica, which plug into its execution and clearing infrastructure. Funds held for customers in segregated accounts passed $1 billion at the end of September.
The timing matters. Federally regulated exchanges have become a crowded field this year, with sportsbook operators such as DraftKings now running their own platforms. DraftKings CEO Jason Robins recently claimed . Plus500 is taking a different route, acting as broker and clearing firm rather than building a consumer sportsbook brand.
A US super-app planned for early 2027
Plus500 also confirmed plans for a single US app in the first quarter of 2027. The company says the app will bring together futures, options on futures, prediction markets, stocks, options and ETFs. The stock and ETF side depends on Hedge, a US broker-dealer Plus500 has agreed to buy, subject to conditions. Hedge would give the group access to SEC-regulated securities for the first time. A second deal, for Guru in Brazil, would give Plus500 its first local operation in the country and a base for growth elsewhere in the region.
“In the US, Hedge will unlock access to SEC-regulated markets, supporting the planned launch of a new, multi-asset ‘super-app’ in Q1 2027,” chief executive David Zruia said in the statement.
Customer numbers and cash
New customers in the quarter rose 27% to 28,747, while the average cost of acquiring each one fell 14% to $1,150. Active customers totaled 119,528 for Q3. Customer deposits hit a quarterly record of $1.9 billion.
The group finished September with more than $775 million in cash and no debt, after paying out $87.4 million in dividends and spending around $63.5 million on buybacks during the quarter. Both acquisitions will be paid for from existing cash.
For anyone tracking how event contracts are spreading beyond Kalshi and Polymarket, the numbers show a traditional CFD broker now leaning on US prediction markets as a growth line. Trading volume figures in this space can be misleading, though, as this sets out.
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