Is Crypto.com legal in Missouri?

Attorney General Catherine Hanaway's office sent the three-page letter on September 16, 2026. Its subject line is "Unlicensed Sport Wagering Operations in Missouri," and Solicitor General Louis J. Capozzi, III signed it. The first sentence calls Crypto.com "an online sports wagering platform" that serves people in Missouri "despite not submitting to regulation by the Missouri Gaming Commission" (p.1).

Its authority is the 2024 vote. The letter quotes the amendment Missourians approved: the public interest is "best served by a well-regulated sports wagering industry" (Mo. Const. art. III, § 39(g)1). Since then, it says, online sports wagering platforms serving Missouri have needed a Gaming Commission license. That rule "is not optional and applies to Crypto.com" (p.1).

The two choices the letter gives

Crypto.com "must cease and desist," the letter says. The other path has three parts: "(a) obtain a license from the Missouri Gaming Commission, (b) pay all associated state taxes and fees, and (c) stop offering sports wagering to persons in the State of Missouri under the age of 21" (p.1). Each step rests on the attorney general's reading of Missouri law. No court has adopted it against Crypto.com in any record we found.

One that the federal records do not name. The letter is addressed only to "Foris DAX, Inc. ("Crypto.com")," care of its registered agent in Wilmington, Delaware (p.1). It never mentions North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc., the company the CFTC designated a contract market.

The commission's amended designation order of September 29, 2025 says that exchange does business as Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (p.1). The CFTC's listing says Foris DAX Markets, Inc. acquired it in March 2022. Foris DAX, Inc. appears in neither document.

We found no public document explaining how Foris DAX, Inc. relates to Foris DAX Markets, Inc. or to the exchange. We found no reply from any of the three to the letter. Connecticut addressed its own order to yet another name, Foris DAX Asia Pte. Ltd.; Crypto.com in Connecticut covers that one.

As the letter states the measure, Missouri "imposes a wagering tax of 10%" on "the adjusted gross revenue" from all in-state sports wagering (art. III, § 39(g)10.a). Online platforms also owe an initial license fee and a renewal fee every five years. Each fee "could be as much as $500,000" (§ 39(g)6). The letter says the money goes to Missouri schools and to a Compulsive Gaming Prevention Fund (§ 39(g)15) (p.2). The office's release calls it "a 10% tax on sports betting gross receipts."

The letter then applies the measure to Crypto.com. It says Crypto.com "has made money from sports wagers placed by individuals located in the State of Missouri" and "kept all of that money for itself." Until it pays, the letter says, it "will not be permitted to offer the use of its online sports wagering platform in Missouri" (p.2).

That is the attorney general's stated position. We found no Gaming Commission assessment against any Crypto.com company. The letter says nothing about the people who trade.

Missouri bars sports wagering by anyone under 21, the letter says (11 C.S.R. § 45-20.360(1)(A)). It puts an "affirmative duty" on platforms to "actively prevent the placement of a wager by individuals under twenty-one (21) years of age" (§ 45-20.360(6)).

Its evidence on Crypto.com is a document. The letter says "Crypto.com's U.S. Exchange Terms and Conditions permit anyone who is 'at least eighteen (18) years of age' to place wagers." Allowing wagering by Missourians under 21 "will not be tolerated," it adds (p.2). That is the attorney general's description of those terms; we did not read them for this check.

The September 18 release puts Crypto.com among five of the six companies that, in the office's words, "either permit underage users to access their products or lack adequate safeguards." Novig is the one it leaves off.

The letter asks Crypto.com to confirm "within thirty days of the date of this letter" that it complies with Missouri law or has stopped sports wagering in the state (p.3). Thirty days from September 16 is October 16, 2026; the letter itself gives no calendar date. "Otherwise, the State of Missouri will take legal action against Crypto.com," it says. Missouri also "remains open to possible legislative reforms in the future" (p.3).

As of November 5, 2026, a search of the attorney general's posts since September 1 for Crypto.com, Foris, prediction markets and wagering returns only the September 18 release. The Missouri Gaming Commission's home page, read November 5, 2026, does not mention Crypto.com.

We found no Missouri lawsuit or enforcement action naming any Crypto.com company. We could not determine whether Foris DAX, Inc. answered the letter, and we did not search Missouri's state courts.

The exchange, under a different name. On October 16, 2026, North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc. filed a "Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief" in the Western District of Missouri (No. 4:26-cv-00969). The defendants are Attorney General Hanaway and other Missouri officials. The court's docket, as we read it on October 21, 2026, lists the plaintiff as doing business as OG.Com Prediction Markets. It does not use the name Crypto.com.

Two documents, two companies

The letter went to Foris DAX, Inc. The suit comes from the exchange that the CFTC's order calls Crypto.com | Derivatives North America. That is also the name it uses as petitioner in its Supreme Court case against Nevada. We have not read the complaint. So we cannot say whether it mentions Crypto.com or the September 16 letter, or exactly what it asks the court to bar.

We read that docket on October 21, 2026; we could not reach it again for this check, so we have not seen any entry after the complaint. We found no ruling in the case, and the online docket may lag the court's own system.

Crypto.com. We found no document in which a Crypto.com company answers Missouri directly. Its prediction page describes Prediction as an event contract that is "a derivatives product offered by Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (CDNA), a CFTC-regulated exchange." Its help page says sports event trading "is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)." Those are the company's statements, not findings.

Missouri. The letter answers that argument in advance. It says Crypto.com "has sought to avoid complying with similar sports gambling laws of other states" by calling its products event contracts or swaps. Missouri, it says, "shares the same view as the majority of federal courts" that federal commodities law does not preempt state law here (p.2). "Majority" is the attorney general's word.

One of the eight decisions it lists is a 2025 district court ruling in the exchange's own case against Nevada. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in that case on August 28, 2026. The company has asked the Supreme Court to hear it (No. 26-344).

We could not confirm it from a primary document. Crypto.com's Sports Event Trading help page, read November 5, 2026, says the feature "is currently available in the United States only." It does not name Missouri. The letter says nothing about balances, deposits, withdrawals or open positions, and no order we found restricts Missouri accounts.

The other five letters each have a page: Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, Novig and Underdog. Every other state is on the Crypto.com legal page.

The attorney general's letter decides nothing about federal income tax, and a state gambling demand is not a tax ruling. How the common ways people file event contracts work, with no IRS guidance on them, is in the prediction market tax guide.