Is Webull legal in Connecticut?

What we know comes from one announcement. On September 10, 2026 Governor Ned Lamont and the consumer protection commissioner announced that the Department of Consumer Protection had issued nine cease-and-desist orders "this week". Webull is seventh on the release's list, after Polymarket, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Robinhood, ProphetX and Novig, and before Gemini and Underdog Predict. The release calls the nine "prediction markets known to be operating illegally in Connecticut"; that is the state's characterization, and no court has ruled on it as to Webull.

By the release's account, all nine are ordered "to immediately cease and desist advertising, offering, promoting, or otherwise making available 'sports event contracts' or any other form of unlicensed online gambling to Connecticut residents." It warns that failure to comply may bring civil penalties under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act or criminal penalties under the state's gaming statutes. The same release says the department sent nearly 30 subpoenas, to payment processors, sports data firms, app stores and media outlets, as part of its investigation.

We found no copy of the order to Webull on the department's or the governor's site. The release says copies "are available upon request to DCP" through its GovQA portal, and we have not obtained one. So its date, its legal reasoning and anything it says beyond the release's summary are unknown to us.

The release says only "Webull". Several companies use the name. Webull Futures LLC, a futures commission merchant registered with the CFTC, is the one that facilitates customer trading in event contracts (p.1). Its own firm disclosure, dated August 31, 2026, names Webull Corporation as its parent and says each event contract purchase is paid with settled cash from the customer's linked Webull Financial account (pp.6, 9).

Which of these the department addressed matters for what the order reaches, and we could not determine it. Elsewhere, Kentucky's lawsuit named only the parent and Baltimore's named the parent and Webull Financial; Kentucky and Maryland cover those cases.

Not according to Webull. Its help center article on event contract eligibility, read November 10, 2026, answers the question of state restrictions this way: "Currently, sports-related Event Contracts are not available to residents of Nevada, Maryland, Connecticut, or Michigan." Webull's prediction markets page says the same of customers "located in" those four states.

Three limits on what that tells you. It is Webull's statement, not an order. It does not say when the Connecticut restriction started or whether it answers the department's letter. And it is about sports only: the help article adds that availability "may be subject to additional geographic restrictions", and we found no Webull statement about other contract categories in Connecticut. Webull's risk disclosure warns that if courts decide states may restrict these contracts, "open positions for customers in those states may become untradeable" (p.2).

We found no document that speaks to it for Webull. The release has one sentence on customer funds: "DCP also ordered all three platforms to allow Connecticut residents to withdraw any funds currently held by the platforms." It sits in the paragraph about nine platforms and does not name the three. The attorney general's August 26, 2026 release has the same order and withdrawal sentences, word for word, describing the department's December 2025 orders to "Kalshi and two other sites". The September release does not say whether its "three" means those or includes Webull.

Without the order to Webull we cannot say whether it requires anything about deposits, withdrawals or open positions. No court has issued an order touching Webull accounts in Connecticut that we found.

Through the exchanges. Webull Futures' August 31 disclosure lists it as an exchange member of KalshiEX LLC and a clearing member of Kalshi Klear, and as a member of North American Derivatives Exchange, which does business as Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (p.6). It describes its event contracts as "traded on KalshiEX and Nadex and cleared as swaps".

Both exchanges were in Connecticut's sights before Webull was. The federal government's complaint against Connecticut, filed April 2, 2026 as No. 3:26-cv-00498, says the department's December 2, 2025 letters went to "KalshiEx and Crypto.com" as designated contract markets and to Robinhood Derivatives as a futures commission merchant (¶60, p.18). Its position is that federal law bars states "from invading the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction over event contract transactions offered by and executed on federally regulated DCMs" (¶8, p.3), and the declaration and injunction it asks for are framed "as applied to CFTC-Designated Contract Markets" (p.26). It does not mention Webull. We did not read that case's docket for this check.

Not about Webull, in anything we found. Two related cases are in the federal courts. On August 10, 2026 Judge Vernon D. Oliver denied Coinbase a preliminary injunction, holding it had not shown it was likely to establish either that Kalshi's sports-event contracts "offered through Coinbase" are swaps or that federal law preempts Connecticut's gambling laws as applied to them (ECF 93, p.4), in line with a companion ruling in Kalshi's own case. On November 3, 2026 a Second Circuit panel denied Kalshi (No. 26-2239) and Coinbase (No. 26-2297) injunctions while their Connecticut appeals are heard. The appeals themselves are undecided.

Webull is a party to neither. Coinbase, like Webull, is a broker offering Kalshi's contracts, which is why its ruling is the closest one. Kalshi in Connecticut, Coinbase in Connecticut and Crypto.com in Connecticut follow those disputes.

The department's order is about who may license event contracts in Connecticut, and a state gambling ruling is not a ruling on federal income tax. How the people we've seen file report an event contracts year is in how to file Kalshi taxes and how prediction market trades are taxed; every other state is on Webull's legal status page.