Crypto.com and Novig Sue Missouri as Four Named Firms Hold Off

Six companies got the same letter from Missouri's attorney general's office in mid-September. Two of them sued. North American Derivatives Exchange, the CFTC-registered venue behind Crypto.com's prediction market, filed in the Western District of Missouri on 16 October, and Novig's exchange operator, Ludlow Exchange LLC, filed the same day in the Eastern District. Each asks a federal judge to stop the state enforcing its sports wagering laws against their event contracts, which are tradable contracts that pay out on a stated outcome. Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood and Underdog have filed nothing in either district.

Thirty days, then two filings

The letters went out on 16 and 17 September and gave each company 30 days. Stop offering sports event contracts to Missourians, or hold a licence from the Missouri Gaming Commission and pay the state's 10% wagering tax. The deadline ran out last week, and the suits followed it by a day. The office's public position is that companies cannot repackage sports bets as event contracts to get around state law. The Block renders the end of that line as "to evade Missouri law" and crypto.news renders it as "to avoid Missouri law", one word apart in what both present as the same direct quotation. We could not establish which is verbatim.

The 10% does not sit still either. One account describes it as a tax on gross sports betting receipts, another as 10% of adjusted gross revenue from licensed betting. The rate agrees in both and the base does not.

The licence that does not exist

Crypto.com's complaint takes the compliance option apart before it reaches the constitutional argument. Missouri provides two direct mobile sports wagering licences and both are already held, so the exchange says there is nothing left for it to apply for. The complaint also says the cease-and-desist was "incorrectly addressed" to Foris DAX, Inc. and not to the exchange that runs the market. The age point goes the other way. The office said the platform let users as young as 18 trade sports contracts against a state minimum of 21, and on Crypto Briefing's reading five of the six letters raised it. Novig was not among them.

Where the question is already sitting

Both complaints run on the same statute. The Commodity Exchange Act gives the CFTC "exclusive jurisdiction" over these contracts, each argues, and federal law displaces state gambling rules. Appeals courts have split on exactly that. The 6th and 9th Circuits ruled against Kalshi and the 3rd sided with it. The 8th Circuit covers Missouri and has the question in front of it on appeal from Iowa, so Novig asks for a preliminary injunction to hold its position until that appeal is heard, not for a final answer now. The same argument ran from the federal side in June, when the CFTC sued New Mexico to keep prediction markets under federal law. It ran from the other side a month later, when a Washington court enjoined Kalshi on the reading that commodities law leaves state gambling statutes standing.

Four silences

Nothing in the record explains why the other four have not filed. Kalshi answered the office first, and Spectrum News reported on 2 October that the two sides were in discussions the office called ongoing. Underdog did go to court last month, over Connecticut rather than Missouri. Polymarket and Robinhood have said nothing in public, and none of the four answered The Block's questions. Neither did Crypto.com, Novig or the attorney general's office. One account notes that the Eastern District docket showed no injunction granted as of the weekend, which leaves each venue to decide for itself whether to keep taking Missouri orders while the papers sit. Whatever the 8th Circuit does with the Iowa appeal will land on both suits, and on the four companies that have not brought one.