Is Crypto.com legal in Wisconsin?

Attorney General Josh Kaul's office filed a complaint to abate a public nuisance in Dane County Circuit Court, dated April 23, 2026 and signed by Assistant Attorneys General Colin T. Roth and Charlotte Gibson. It is one of three suits the Department of Justice announced that Thursday, and the only one whose named defendants are all Crypto.com companies.

The argument runs in three steps. Crypto.com "collects a fee akin to a casino's rake at a poker table" on every trade (p.1, ¶3). Its contracts are "indistinguishable from an ordinary sports bet" under Wis. Stat. § 945.01(1) (p.2, ¶5). And although Crypto.com "apparently does not take the other side" of its customers' trades, earning those fees is, the complaint says, criminal commercial gambling, and the "ongoing, repeated criminal violations" are a nuisance the attorney general may sue to abate (pp.2-4, ¶¶6-8, 13).

Its example is the 2026 NCAA men's Final Four. On April 3, the complaint says, a contract on Michigan beating Arizona cost "around $0.54"; when Michigan won, it paid $1 (p.2, ¶4). These are the state's allegations, and no court has ruled on them.

Two, and the complaint says how they fit together. Foris DAX Markets, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in Texas and "the parent company of the other Crypto.com entity" (p.3, ¶10). North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc., doing business as Crypto.com | Derivatives North America, is a Delaware corporation based in Illinois and "a wholly owned subsidiary" of Foris DAX Markets (pp.3-4, ¶11). Twenty unnamed Doe defendants are added for anyone who helps, to be named later (p.4, ¶12).

That second company is the exchange the CFTC's amended designation order of September 29, 2025 calls a designated contract market (p.1). Other states wrote to other names: Missouri to Foris DAX, Inc. and Connecticut to Foris DAX Asia Pte. Ltd., covered on Crypto.com in Missouri and Crypto.com in Connecticut. Of the state actions on the Crypto.com legal pages, Wisconsin's suit is the only one we found that makes the exchange a defendant.

Three parts of § 945.03(1m), each a Class I felony, though the state asks only for civil relief:

• (b), receiving bets for gain. Crypto.com runs a market "through which sports bets are made" and collects per-transaction fees on them (p.20, ¶61).
• (c), holding the money. Customers deposit into "accounts controlled by Crypto.com," which, the complaint says, takes custody of the funds until a position is sold or settles, then pays the winner less its fees (p.14, ¶¶46-47; p.21, ¶62).
• (g), using a wire facility. The app and website are, in the state's reading, a "wire communication facility" carrying sports bets to and from people in Wisconsin (pp.21-22, ¶¶63-66).

The complaint also answers two defenses in advance. Wisconsin's definition of a bet excludes "bona fide business transactions," including contracts to buy or sell securities or commodities at a future date. The state says that exception "only goes so far," because a separate statute, now § 895.055, has voided agreements on sports bets since at least 1898 (p.8, ¶¶29-30). And the tribal exceptions, the gaming compacts and Assembly Bill 601 signed April 9, 2026, cover only wagers tied to tribal lands, not "non-tribal sports betting operations" (pp.10-11, ¶¶37-38).

Three things: a declaration that, "by making sports-related event contracts available for trading by customers located in Wisconsin," Crypto.com is violating § 945.03(1m)(b), (c) and (g) and causing a public nuisance; a preliminary and permanent injunction against doing that, reaching its officers, employees, agents, successors and "anyone acting on its behalf"; and any other relief the court finds just (pp.22-23).

The request names no election, economics or crypto contracts, and no fine or refund. Footnote 9 adds that the state "does not seek to void or otherwise invalidate outstanding sports-related event contracts" with a Wisconsin customer as a party (p.23 n.9). That describes what the state wants, not what any court has ordered.

We could not read its docket, so this comes from other parties' filings. Robinhood's May 19, 2026 motion in Kalshi's case gives the Dane County number as 2026CV001286 (ECF 41, p.3 n.2). It says "Polymarket and Crypto.com removed their respective actions" to the Western District of Wisconsin, citing a notice of removal in No. 3:26-cv-00381, and that Wisconsin "has also moved to remand those two cases," citing ECF 10 there (p.5 n.3). Novig's August 14 complaint dates the removal April 24, 2026 and says all three removed cases are "now pending in this District" (p.27, ¶83).

The Eastern District's July 28 order in the CFTC's case says the three removed cases had remand motions "pending" then (ECF 54, p.2). On September 8, the state's lawyer told that court that motions "for remand and for a preliminary injunction remain pending" in the Western District; the minute entry does not say which of the removed cases the statement concerned.

We have not read the notice of removal, the remand motion or anything filed after it in No. 3:26-cv-00381, and the Department of Justice's copy of the complaint shows no case number. We found no ruling, and we could not determine where the case stands. Appeals from that court go to the Seventh Circuit.

Five days after Wisconsin sued, the CFTC sued the state "in response to the state's lawsuits against Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Coinbase," calling them "five CFTC-regulated prediction markets." North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc. then moved to join as a plaintiff and to back the CFTC's request for a preliminary injunction (ECF 54, pp.1-2).

Judge William C. Griesbach of the Eastern District denied both in a July 28, 2026 order, and denied the CFTC's injunction too (p.28). The order gives three reasons for keeping the exchange and Kalshi out. The CFTC "is vigorously representing its interests" on the same legal question, interests "aligned with" the companies' (p.12). The companies "are already protecting their interests in the state court actions" that were removed, whichever court ends up hearing them (p.13). And had they sued on their own, the order says, the court would have abstained under Younger v. Harris, given "the pending state court actions against them" (p.13). The order does accept that companies such as the exchange "will suffer economic loss" if Wisconsin enforces its law (p.6).

The CFTC appealed to the Seventh Circuit, and on September 8 the case was stayed and administratively closed pending those appeals (ECF 72). We read the CFTC's and Kalshi's notices of appeal; we could not determine whether the exchange appealed the denial of its own motion.

Wisconsin. "Thinly disguising unlawful conduct doesn't make it lawful," Attorney General Kaul said in the department's release. The release says the companies, "as alleged in these lawsuits," are "disguising the sports betting they facilitate on their online platforms as 'event contracts.'" The complaint quotes Crypto.com's own explainer to show how the contracts work, down to a hypothetical Lakers championship contract trading at $0.25 (p.12, ¶42).

Crypto.com. Its prediction page calls each contract "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. In the exchange's own suit against Nevada officials, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction on August 28, 2026, and the exchange has asked the Supreme Court to hear that case (No. 26-344).

We could not confirm it from a primary document. 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 Wisconsin. In April the complaint alleged that football, baseball, basketball, golf and tennis contracts were all open to customers in the state (pp.15-16, ¶¶48, 51); that is the state's account, not a current listing.

No order we found touches deposits, withdrawals or open positions in Wisconsin. The state's other targets have their own pages: Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood and Coinbase. Every other state is on the Crypto.com legal page.

The complaint asks a court to call these contracts bets under Wisconsin gambling law, and a state gambling case 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.