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.
