The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that it is suing Kalshi, Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket, Crypto.com, and their affiliates, to halt their alleged facilitation of illegal sports betting, a form of unlawful commercial gambling, in Wisconsin.

“Thinly disguising unlawful conduct doesn’t make it lawful. These companies’ alleged facilitation of sports betting in Wisconsin should be shut down,” said AG Kaul.

Except in limited circumstances, sports betting and other forms of commercial gambling have long been illegal in Wisconsin. Yet, as alleged in these lawsuits, the defendant companies have chosen to flout Wisconsin law through disguising the sports betting they facilitate on their online platforms as “event contracts,” which pay out just like ordinary bets based on the odds of sports-related outcomes.

The complaints further allege that the companies collect a fee for every bet made, meaning they generate revenue from Wisconsinites by violating the state’s gambling laws. Kalshi, as one example, reportedly generates more than $1 billion in annual revenue from its sports contracts, representing around 90% of its total estimated annualized revenue.

As the complaints allege, by making money from the sports bets they facilitate, these companies are engaging in unlawful gambling activity.

Wisconsin DOJ’s lawsuits, filed on last Thursday in Dane County, request a declaration that, by making sports-related event contracts available for trading by customers located in Wisconsin, the defendant companies are violating Wis. Stat.§945.03(1m) and thereby creating a public nuisance. The lawsuits additionally request preliminary and permanent injunctions enjoining and restraining the defendant companies from making sports-related event contracts available for trading by customers located in Wisconsin.

DraftKings Inc. announced an agreement with Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (Crypto.com), a global cryptocurrency platform and CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange, to broaden the prediction markets available on DraftKings Predictions. The expansion marks the first player-specific sports event contracts offered on DraftKings Predictions for both the NFL and NBA, extends the platform’s prediction markets offerings, and establishes the foundation for future categories, including politics.

“We’re continuing to build momentum behind DraftKings Predictions by leveraging our expertise across sports and technology and integrating additional CFTC-regulated exchanges like Crypto.com. This collaboration meaningfully expands customer access to trade on sports and a broader range of prediction markets and also reinforces our focus on delivering a more comprehensive and engaging experience as the product continues to evolve,” said Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto, Senior Vice President and General Manager of DraftKings Predictions.

As part of this expansion, DraftKings Predictions adds breadth across sports prediction markets in the states where the product is available, spanning soccer, MMA, golf, boxing, tennis, and the Olympic Games, to complement the existing sports and financial markets provided by CME Group. In addition to the wider scope of sports prediction markets, Crypto.com is expected to support DraftKings Predictions’ introduction of new event contract categories, including culture, entertainment, and politics. Additionally, DraftKings Predictions will integrate Railbird Exchange in the coming months, further strengthening its offering.

“Crypto.com continues to lead the way with innovative collaboration. Connecting with DraftKings, a household name in sports, is an important milestone for us because it allows us to not only expand access to prediction markets in sports, but it grows our distribution to prediction markets on cryptocurrencies, financials, companies, politics, culture, entertainment and beyond. We are thrilled to work with DraftKings, and we look forward to creating an engaging experience together for customers across the country,” said Travis McGhee, Global Head of Predictions at Crypto.com.