Is Robinhood legal in Nevada?

Robinhood Derivatives, LLC is a futures commission merchant: it does not list contracts itself, it routes its customers' trades to exchanges. In March 2025 it began letting customers trade sports contracts listed on Kalshi's exchange. According to Chief Judge Andrew Gordon's order of November 25, 2025, Robinhood switched them off for Nevada customers after the Gaming Control Board announced its cease-and-desist to Kalshi, and the Board then wrote to Robinhood that it would consider it a violation of Nevada gaming law to let Nevada customers trade Kalshi's sports contracts. Robinhood switched them back on in August 2025 (ECF 90, p.1).

On August 19, 2025 Robinhood sued the Board, the Nevada Gaming Commission, their members and Attorney General Aaron Ford in federal court in Las Vegas (No. 2:25-cv-01541). Its position, as the court summarized it, is that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over contracts traded on Kalshi's exchange, so Nevada cannot enforce its law against Kalshi or Robinhood (p.1).

Judge Gordon denied Robinhood a restraining order. He found it had shown "serious questions on the merits", but not that the hardships tipped sharply its way, and pointed to his own earlier rulings in Kalshi's and Nadex's Nevada cases for his reasons (ECF 90, p.2). Robinhood's harms were "largely monetary" and could be eased by geofencing, he wrote, and by reopening Nevada trading in August it had "in a very real sense created its own harm" (p.3). He also noted that the CFTC had told brokers like Robinhood to warn customers about the lawsuits, so customers who kept trading "were proceeding at their own risk" (p.3).

The next day, November 26, 2025, the two sides filed a joint notice of agreement (ECF 91). It is the parties' agreement, filed with the court, not an order of the court. Its terms:

• What stops. Robinhood "agrees to cease offering new sports-related event contracts in Nevada beginning on December 1, 2025" (p.2). Nothing else Robinhood offers is named.
• For how long. Until the first of three events: the district court grants Robinhood an injunction pending appeal, the Ninth Circuit grants one, or the appeal is finally resolved, "if certiorari is sought, by denial of certiorari or a decision by the Supreme Court" (p.2).
• What Nevada gives. While Robinhood complies, the state will not bring enforcement actions over sports contracts offered before December 1, 2025 (p.3).
• What Robinhood would do next. If either court grants an injunction pending appeal, Robinhood "intends to resume offering sports-related event contracts in Nevada" (p.3).

Both sides keep every argument: the agreement is "without prejudice to any party's rights, obligations, or defenses" (p.3). On December 16, 2025 Judge Gordon denied Robinhood's motion for an injunction pending appeal for the same reasons as his November ruling (ECF 102).

The agreement has Robinhood "explore unwinding longer-duration open sports-related event contracts in Nevada" and, if both the district court and the Ninth Circuit deny an injunction pending appeal, "work with Defendants to unwind all open sports-related event contracts involving Nevada customers" (ECF 91, p.2). The district court has denied one. We have found no Ninth Circuit ruling on an injunction pending appeal and no filing about unwinding, so we cannot say whether any Nevada position has been closed under that clause.

The agreement doesn't mention withdrawals or deposits. Robinhood's event contract restrictions page, read October 23, 2026, says "Nevada residents can't open new sports contracts (as of December 1, 2025)." The same page lists a separate restriction for Maryland. Every other state is on Robinhood's legal status page.

The Ninth Circuit heard Robinhood's appeal (No. 25-7831) with Kalshi's and Nadex's Nevada appeals on April 16, 2026, with the Nevada Resort Association in the case beside the state. On August 28 it affirmed in a short memorandum that is not precedent. It adopted its opinion in Kalshi's appeal, decided the same day, to hold that the contracts are not "swaps" under 7 U.S.C. § 1a(47)(A)(ii) or transactions in excluded commodities, that Robinhood's conflict and field preemption arguments fail, and that the other factors favor Nevada (pp.2-3). The Kalshi side of the same ruling, and the state-court injunction against Kalshi, are on Kalshi in Nevada.

Robinhood asked the Supreme Court to review on September 10, 2026 (No. 26-338). Its petition presents one question: "whether the Commodity Exchange Act preempts the application of state gaming laws to sports-related event contracts traded on federally regulated contract markets" (p.i). It does not ask for review right away. It says granting now "would be premature" while the CFTC writes a rule on event contracts (p.3), and asks that if the Court takes up another petition on the question, such as New Jersey's from the Third Circuit, it take Robinhood's too, because Robinhood is a broker rather than an exchange (p.24). Nevada's response is due November 13, 2026 (docket). The petitions at the Supreme Court are followed together.

Polymarket US faces a separate order in Nevada, a state-court preliminary injunction: Polymarket in Nevada.

Nevada argues that letting its residents trade sports contracts is gaming its regulators license; Robinhood argues those contracts sit on CFTC-regulated exchanges that state gaming law cannot reach. The agreement and the Ninth Circuit's ruling settle who may offer the contracts in Nevada while the case runs. Neither says anything about federal tax, and the IRS has issued no ruling or guidance on event contracts.

The three routes we see most often among people who file are reporting the year as gambling winnings and losses under section 165(d), as standard capital gains on Form 8949, or under the Section 1256 60/40 rule on Form 6781. How each one applies to a Robinhood event contracts year is in Robinhood event contracts taxes.