Is Polymarket legal in Ohio?

On October 2, 2026 the Commission sent Polymarket US, and nine other businesses, a letter demanding that it "immediately cease and desist from offering" sports-event contracts to people located in Ohio "without a license issued by the Commission", and confirm in writing within fourteen days that it had complied. That is how Polymarket US's complaint quotes it (pp.5, 28). The letter is the complaint's Exhibit 1, and we have not seen it ourselves, so every phrase here is as the complaint reports it.

By that account the letter says that "[p]lainly stated, Polymarket is operating online sports gaming", that it is "clearly engaged in bookmaking or facilitating bookmaking in violation of Ohio civil and criminal law", and that the Sixth Circuit's Kalshi ruling made "clear that Ohio's sports gaming laws apply to Polymarket's sports event contracts" (pp.28-29). It warns of "administrative, civil, nuisance, or criminal actions" and a civil penalty equal to the money Polymarket "unlawfully obtained or retained" from people in Ohio, and says the Commission may also go after Polymarket's "officers, directors, and holding or parent companies" (p.29). The complaint notes the letter was addressed to "PM US Tech (QC Tech LLC)", not to QCX LLC (p.5 n.3). Fourteen days from October 2 was October 16, the day Polymarket US sued.

QCX LLC v. Wilson, No. 2:26-cv-01502, was filed in the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division. The defendants are Attorney General Andy Wilson, the Commission's interim executive director Andromeda Morrison, and its seven commissioners, each in an official capacity (pp.1, 7-8). It brings two claims, each Polymarket US's argument:

• The Commerce Clause. Ohio's online sports-gaming licenses, the complaint says, go only to businesses with a physical presence in the state, would require operations run from Ohio, and would limit a licensee to people physically in Ohio, "cutting the company off from the rest of the United States" (p.2). It calls that discrimination against interstate commerce (Count I, p.32).
• Federal preemption. It argues the Commodity Exchange Act gives the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over contracts on a designated contract market, which QCX is, and leans on two CFTC actions dated October 9, 2026, an interim final rule and a proposed rule, which it says define event contracts, sports included, as swaps (pp.3-4; Count II).

It asks for a declaration that Ohio Revised Code Chapters 2915, 3767 and 3775 and an administrative rule "are unconstitutional as applied to Polymarket US and preempted under the CEA", and for preliminary and permanent injunctions against enforcing them (p.43). We have found no response from Ohio and no ruling.

No court order we found stops Polymarket US in Ohio, and the Commission's letter is a demand, not an order. The complaint describes the alternative to fighting as "abruptly terminating Ohio users' access to event contracts and unwinding their current positions" (p.31); that is Polymarket US's description of a step it has not said it took. We could not confirm from a primary source whether it has changed anything for Ohio users, and no filing we found addresses accounts, deposits or withdrawals. Every other state is on Polymarket's legal status page.

The court has not ruled. The case sits in the Sixth Circuit, which held on September 25, 2026, in Kalshi's Ohio and Tennessee appeals, that Kalshi "has not shown that its sports-event contracts satisfy the statutory definition of a 'swap'", and in the alternative that federal law does not preempt those states' gambling laws (opinion, p.3). That was a preliminary-injunction ruling about Kalshi. Polymarket US's complaint says it "was decided against a different legal landscape" before the CFTC's October 9 rules, and that the decision "remains subject to rehearing and certiorari" (p.4). Kalshi's side of it, including its October 9 rehearing petition, is on Kalshi in Ohio.

The same appeals court also has Polymarket US's own appeal from Michigan, where a federal judge denied it a preliminary injunction on June 17, 2026 (No. 26-1552, consolidated with Robinhood's); Polymarket in Michigan follows it.

Ohio's Commission calls Polymarket US's sports contracts sports gaming that needs an Ohio license; Polymarket US says they are contracts on a federal exchange that the CFTC alone regulates, and that Ohio's license rules shut out out-of-state businesses. The court will decide who may offer them in Ohio. Neither side's claim is about federal tax, and the IRS has published no guidance on event contracts.

Of the people we've seen file, the three most common ways are gambling income under section 165(d), capital gains on Form 8949, and Section 1256 with its 60/40 split on Form 6781. How Realize rebuilds a Polymarket US year under each is in how to file Polymarket taxes.