Is Coinbase legal in Nevada?

Coinbase Financial Markets, Inc. is a CFTC-registered futures commission merchant. It does not run an exchange: it gives customers access to event contracts listed on Kalshi's. The Board's complaint, as the federal court in Nevada summarized it, says Coinbase began offering event-contract trading across the country, Nevada included, in January 2026 (ECF 24, p.2).

Within weeks the Gaming Control Board moved. On February 2, 2026 it filed a civil enforcement action against Coinbase in the First Judicial District Court in Carson City (No. 26 OC 00030 1B), asking for a declaration and an injunction "to stop Coinbase from offering unlicensed wagering in violation of Nevada law" (Board release). The Board "considers offering sports event contracts, or certain other event contracts, to constitute wagering activity" under NRS 463.0193 and 463.01962, and named four statutes it says Coinbase violates: NRS 463.160, 463.350, 465.086 and 465.092. Chairman Mike Dreitzer said the Board "takes seriously its obligation to operate a thriving gaming industry and to protect Nevada citizens."

On February 5 the Carson City court issued a 14-day temporary restraining order barring Coinbase from offering event contracts in Nevada at all. The parties extended it, first to February 26 and then through March 9 (PI order, p.2).

After a February 17 hearing, the court granted the Board's motion for a preliminary injunction on March 26, 2026. On the merits it found the Board reasonably likely to win: the evidence at that early stage showed Coinbase unlicensed under the Nevada Gaming Control Act, offering contracts on college basketball, college and professional football and elections, and taking a commission on contracts bought through its system, which made it a "percentage game" under Nevada law. Coinbase did not dispute that it was unlicensed or that it offered those contracts (pp.3-4).

On preemption, the court called the question "nuanced and rapidly evolving" and said the balance of authority "weighs against federal preemption in this context" (p.4). It concluded that the Commodity Exchange Act does not give the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over contracts traded through Coinbase's platform, so "Nevada law is not preempted" (p.5).

The order bars Coinbase from "offering or facilitating the offering" of three categories "within the geographic boundaries of the State of Nevada" (p.6):

• Sports, including props on any element of a game and parlays that combine outcomes.
• Elections.
• Entertainment: movies, music, awards, video games, esports and similar markets under the "Entertainment" tab of Coinbase's platform.

Coinbase got 60 days to make the "technological enhancements necessary to comply", and in the meantime had to "prevent users identified as Nevada residents from entering" those contracts (p.7). Because the Board is a state agency, the court required no bond (p.6). Nothing in the order addresses contracts outside the three categories.

Coinbase filed its own case on February 4, 2026, in federal court in Las Vegas, against Attorney General Aaron Ford and eight of the state's gaming regulators, Board chairman Mike Dreitzer among them (No. 2:26-cv-00256), with an emergency motion to stop Nevada from enforcing its gaming law against it (complaint). Its position, as the court summarized it, is that the contracts are "paradigmatic swaps" that may trade only on federally regulated exchanges under the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction (ECF 24, p.2).

Judge Cristina Silva never reached that question. On February 7 she denied the motion and dismissed the complaint without prejudice, holding that the Younger abstention doctrine bars a federal court from interfering with the state's pending enforcement case, and that the Anti-Injunction Act would bar the relief anyway (ECF 24, pp.1, 3-6). Coinbase's complaint about the timing of the state case did not change that: "frustration is neither an exception to Younger nor a reason for this court to exercise its limited jurisdiction" (p.5).

The injunction is about offering contracts, not unwinding them. It does not say what happens to a sports, election or entertainment position a Nevada customer already held, and it does not mention withdrawals or account balances. As of October 24, 2026, we have found no filing or Board release that fills either gap.

The order was granted against Coinbase alone. When it was signed, the court noted that Kalshi itself was "not currently enjoined from offering event contracts in Nevada" (p.6); Kalshi's own Nevada case is followed on Kalshi in Nevada. Robinhood, another broker for Kalshi's contracts, stopped Nevada sports contracts under a separate agreement (Robinhood in Nevada). Every other state is on Coinbase's legal status page.

The enforcement case continues in Carson City toward a final ruling. We found no appeal of the preliminary injunction and no refiled federal suit. A preliminary injunction is not a final judgment, and the court tied its preemption conclusion to "the current state of the law" (p.5), so later appellate rulings on the same question could come back before it.

Coinbase is not a party to the petitions on state gaming law now at the Supreme Court; the petitions at the Supreme Court are followed together.

Nevada's Board argues that accepting money on sporting and other events is running a "sports pool", which needs a Nevada license. Coinbase argues the same contracts are swaps that only federal law and the CFTC govern. The Carson City court sided with the Board for now on who may offer them in Nevada. That is a licensing finding, it says nothing about federal income tax, and there is no IRS guidance on event contracts.

A Nevada resident who traded Kalshi contracts through Coinbase before the order still reports that year. For people in that position, the common routes we see are treating it as gambling winnings and losses under section 165(d), reporting standard capital gains on Form 8949, and the Section 1256 route, which splits gains 60% long-term and 40% short-term on Form 6781. The Tax Center compares them on worked years.