Nevada Moves to Bar Coinbase’s Prediction Markets Without State Gaming License

The Nevada Gaming Control Board filed a civil enforcement action against Coinbase Financial Markets on Monday, seeking to block the CFTC-registered exchange from offering event-based contracts on sports and elections to Nevada residents without state gaming licenses.

Coinbase launched its prediction markets product to U.S. customers last month through a partnership with Kalshi, a CFTC-registered designated contract market. 

The agency filed both a complaint for permanent injunction and declaratory relief, alongside an application for an ex parte temporary restraining order, in the District Court for Carson City. 

“The board considers offering sports event contracts, or certain other event contracts, to constitute wagering activity under NRS 463.0193 and 463.01962 and, therefore, entities offering such event contracts must be licensed,” according to a statement released Tuesday.

The filings ask the court to immediately halt Coinbase’s event-contract offerings on its mobile app, saying the platform allows users aged 18 and above to open accounts and trade despite Nevada’s 21-year minimum age requirement for gambling.

Decrypt has reached out to Coinbase for comment.

Coinbase operates a market offering event-based contracts on sporting events, including college basketball, college and professional football games, and elections, which the Board alleges constitute wagering under Nevada law and require state licensing.

The Nevada action comes just weeks after Coinbase filed federal lawsuits against gaming regulators in Connecticut, Michigan, and Illinois, arguing that the CFTC holds exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets and that state enforcement efforts “stifle innovation and violate the law.” 

Those states issued cease-and-desist letters to prediction market platforms, alleging they were engaged in sports wagering activity without proper licensing.

“The board takes seriously its obligation to operate a thriving gaming industry and to protect Nevada citizens,” Nevada Gaming Control Board Chairman Mike Dreitzer said in a statement. “The action taken yesterday reinforces this obligation.”

The board noted it is suffering “serious, ongoing, irreparable harm every day that Coinbase operates its market in violation of Nevada law.”

Nevada regulators say Coinbase’s operations create “a massive and unfair competitive advantage” over licensed sportsbooks that must pay licensing fees, taxes, maintain physical locations, and comply with strict consumer protection requirements.

Coinbase, however, maintains that prediction markets fall under federal jurisdiction in the lawsuit filed against the three states.

The Nevada action follows similar enforcement steps against prediction-market platforms, such as Kalshi in March of last year, and, more recently, against Polymarket, where a state court issued a temporary restraining order blocking the platform from offering event contracts to Nevada residents for two weeks.

Nevada’s dispute with Kalshi began last March, when the Gaming Control Board issued a cease-and-desist order over its sports event contracts, followed by a brief injunction in Kalshi’s favor that was lifted in November, a decision the company is now appealing in the Ninth Circuit.

Last Saturday, Daniel Wallach, founder and principal of Wallach Legal LLC, a law firm focused on sports wagering and gaming law, posted on X that multiple amicus groups, including dozens of states and tribal organizations, filed briefs backing Nevada, while Kalshi received just one supporting amicus filing from one of its own investors.