Is Crypto.com legal in Nevada?

The Nevada Gaming Control Board sent the company a letter on May 20, 2025. We have not read the letter itself; what follows is how the federal district court's order describes it, as reproduced in the company's Supreme Court appendix.

According to that order, the Board wrote that it was "aware that Crypto.com has been offering, and continues to offer, event-based wagering contracts in Nevada on sporting events on its exchange." It said "offering event-based wagering contracts is unlawful in Nevada, unless and until approved as licensed gaming by the Nevada Gaming Commission" (App. 13a-14a).

The court adds two more points from the letter. According to the Board, the court wrote, the company "was operating as an unlicensed sports pool" in violation of Nevada law, criminal law included. And if it kept offering the contracts after receiving the letter, that would be "considered willful violations of Nevada law" (App. 14a). Those are the Board's positions as the court summarized them; the letter is not a court finding.

The company sued first. It asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada to bar the Board, its members and Attorney General Aaron Ford from "pursuing civil or criminal enforcement" against it for offering event contracts in Nevada (App. 6a-7a), in No. 2:25-cv-00978. The Nevada Resort Association joined the case on the state's side.

On October 14, 2025, Chief Judge Andrew P. Gordon denied both of the company's motions. On the preliminary injunction, the order says the company "has not met its burden to show that it is likely to succeed in demonstrating that its event contracts based on the outcome of live events are swaps" within the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction (App. 8a). The court denied judgment on the pleadings for the same reason.

Why the court ruled for Kalshi earlier

Months before, in Kalshi's case, the court had granted Kalshi an injunction against the Board. The order, written in the first person, addresses that directly: "Despite my prior ruling in Hendrick, I reach a different conclusion in this case" (App. 15a). The court's reading turned on one word in the federal definition of a swap. "The ordinary meaning of event in terms of sports would be the sporting event itself, not who wins it," the order reads (App. 23a).

The order also records how the company listed the contracts. On January 30, 2025, it self-certified to the CFTC contracts on "live presentation industry events," and described them as swaps (App. 12a).

It affirmed, on August 28, 2026, in a five-page memorandum (No. 25-7187) from Judges R. Nelson, Bade and Lee. The appeal was argued April 16, 2026 together with Kalshi's and Robinhood's Nevada appeals, and the court decided all three the same day (p.2, n.1).

The panel gave four reasons:

• Not swaps. "These sports event contracts are not 'swaps' under 7 U.S.C. § 1a(47)(A)(ii)," so they are not subject to the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction, applying its published opinion in KalshiEX v. Assad (p.3).
• Not options. The company had not made that argument in the district court, the panel said, and had "self-certified the contracts to the CFTC as swaps, not options" (p.4).
• The other factors. On harm, equities and the public interest, it incorporated the Kalshi opinion and found they "favor Nevada" (p.4).
• No judgment on the pleadings. It called the company's argument conclusory and forfeited, and said such a judgment "would be premature in this preliminary posture" (pp.4-5).

The memorandum is marked "not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3" (p.1). We did not read the Ninth Circuit docket for this page, so we cannot say whether a rehearing request or the mandate has followed.

The company filed its petition on September 11, 2026, and the Court docketed it as No. 26-344 on September 15. Its question: "whether the CEA preempts state regulation of sports-event contracts traded on a DCM" (p.i).

The petition says the Ninth Circuit split with the Third Circuit, which held in KalshiEX v. Flaherty that sports event contracts are swaps beyond New Jersey's reach. It puts the result this way: the company "can offer sports-event contracts to Atlantic City residents without state interference, but can't offer those same contracts to Las Vegas residents without obtaining a state gaming license" (p.4). That is the petitioner's framing; no response from Nevada appears on the docket as we read it.

When Nevada's answer is due

The response was due October 15, 2026. On October 7, the state respondents' counsel asked for a thirty-two day extension, citing "competing deadlines." The docket shows the request granted on October 8, with time extended "to and including November 16, 2026, for all respondents." As read November 6, 2026, the docket shows no later entry. The Nevada Resort Association is also a respondent. Robinhood's Nevada petition (No. 26-338) and New Jersey's petition against Kalshi (No. 26-299) are followed on the Supreme Court page.

North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc., the exchange that does business as Crypto.com | Derivatives North America under the CFTC's amended designation order. That is the name on the Ninth Circuit's caption and on the Supreme Court docket.

The petition adds a newer name. It says the company is "now doing business as OG.com (and formerly as CDNA)" (p.2), and its corporate disclosure lists OG Markets US, Inc. as the parent (p.iii). The court docket in the company's Missouri suit lists it as doing business as OG.Com Prediction Markets; Crypto.com in Missouri covers that case.

The only primary statement we found is the state's. In a June 3, 2026 release about its Polymarket case, the attorney general's office wrote that "Crypto.com and Robinhood have voluntarily ceased offering sports-, election- and entertainment-related event contracts to Nevada residents." That is Nevada's account, not an order, and it names the brand rather than a company.

As of November 6, 2026, we found no statement from the company confirming it, and no order requiring it. Crypto.com's Sports Event Trading help page, read November 6, 2026, says the feature "is currently available in the United States only" and does not name Nevada. We could not determine how positions opened by Nevada residents before the stop were handled. Other states are on the Crypto.com legal page.

The same June 3 release sorts them into two groups, in the state's words. Kalshi and Coinbase, and now Polymarket, are "enjoined from operating while the state pursues enforcement action against them." Crypto.com and Robinhood are the two it says stopped on their own.

The difference is who went to court. Nevada brought state-court enforcement cases against the first group, as their pages explain: Kalshi in Nevada, Polymarket in Nevada and Coinbase in Nevada. Crypto.com's operator was the plaintiff in its own federal case, and we found no state suit against it. Robinhood's federal case and its own Supreme Court petition (No. 26-338) are on Robinhood in Nevada.

The courts here decided whether Nevada's gaming laws reach the company, and a state gambling ruling is not a ruling on federal income tax. How the common ways people file event contracts work, with no IRS guidance on them, is in the prediction market tax guide.