Ohio prediction markets ignore shutdown deadline as DeMora pushes bills
Ten exchanges told to halt sports contracts in Ohio mostly stayed online past Friday's deadline, as a state senator seeks to regulate them as sportsbooks.
Ohio's attempt to bring prediction markets to heel is running into platforms that are simply not complying, according to Legal Sports Report. State regulators and at least one lawmaker are pursuing parallel routes to force the issue, while the exchanges themselves show little sign of budging.
The Ohio Casino Control Commission issued cease-and-desist orders on 2 October to ten exchanges and brokers, giving them until last Friday to confirm they had stopped offering sports event contracts in the state. The order followed a 25 September ruling by the Sixth Circuit against Kalshi that, Legal Sports Report reported, cleared the way for Ohio to apply its gambling laws to prediction markets.
The companies ordered to stop were Coinbase, Gemini, Titan, Moomoo Financial, Novig, Plus500US, Polymarket, ProphetX, Robinhood Derivatives, Underdog Predict and Webull Financial.
News 5 Cleveland reported that most of those platforms were still live and unchanged as of the end of business on Friday, the deadline set by the commission.
Legal Sports Report said it contacted the commission, the Ohio attorney general's office and several of the platforms for an update but had not received a response by publication.
Governor Mike DeWine told News 5 Cleveland that "it's clear this is gambling" and that the "attorney general of Ohio is taking the action that he needs to take." Attorney General Andy Wilson told the outlet the platforms "need to come into compliance, or we're gonna force them into compliance."
Separately, state Sen. Bill DeMora, a Columbus Democrat, is pushing legislation to put prediction markets under the same regime as licensed sportsbooks. "This decision solidifies that prediction markets are not exempt from Ohio law, and that they need to be regulated the same way other sports betting companies are," DeMora said in a statement, adding that the issue "is not a partisan issue; it is one that needs to be addressed immediately."
DeMora has introduced two bills. SB 430, filed in April, would expand Ohio's definition of sports gaming to capture sports event contracts traded on prediction markets, bringing them under existing licensing requirements, the state's 20% tax and a minimum age of 21. Most prediction markets currently allow users as young as 18. The bill is still awaiting sponsor testimony in committee.
SB 479 would go further on a separate front, making election betting illegal gambling and covering both the platforms and individuals who trade election contracts. It has likewise not received sponsor testimony since it was introduced.
DeMora said in his statement that Ohio is "losing out on tens of millions of dollars every month by not regulating these sites."
Time is short for either bill to become law. Ohio's legislative session ends on 17 December, and bills that do not pass before then do not carry over into 2027, meaning DeMora would need to reintroduce both measures from scratch next year if they stall in committee.
For now, the standoff leaves Ohio regulators holding compliance orders that most of the named platforms have not followed, and lawmakers holding bills that have yet to clear a first committee hearing.