Is Webull legal in Maryland?

Two of them, and the plaintiff is a city, not the state. Baltimore's City Solicitor filed the complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on August 13, 2026, as No. C-24-CV-26-005532 (p.1). It describes Webull Corporation as a Cayman Islands corporation and Webull Financial LLC as a Delaware company, both headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida (¶¶21-22, p.6), and calls them together "Webull" (¶23). They are sued in one complaint with KalshiEX LLC, Kalshi Inc., two Robinhood companies and Coinbase Financial Markets.

The complaint does not name Webull Futures LLC. That is the Webull company registered with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant, and its own disclosure document says it "self-clears customer event contract transactions on Kalshi Klear and Nadex" and is a subsidiary of Webull Corporation (p.6). We found no ruling on whether the suit reaches Webull Futures.

We found no lawsuit or order from the State of Maryland naming a Webull company. Maryland's gaming regulator did write to Kalshi in April 2025, a dispute covered on Kalshi in Maryland, but we could not search the regulator's own site for this check.

In the city's telling, Webull partnered with Kalshi in February 2025 to open a prediction markets hub on its website and apps, whose contracts are "practically identical" to the ones on Kalshi's own site, and "Webull and Kalshi each receive a fee whenever an event contract is purchased" there (¶54, p.13). It says Webull announced that 152 million contracts traded on its platform in the fourth quarter of 2025 (¶70, p.17). It mentions no exchange other than Kalshi.

Counts 5 and 6 are the ones against the two Webull companies, both under the Baltimore Consumer Protection Ordinance, City Code Article 2:

• Count 5, deception (pp.40-41). The city alleges the companies "repeatedly conveyed the false, deceptive, and misleading impression that sports-event contracts available through the Webull platform may lawfully be purchased and traded in Maryland" (¶173).
• Count 6, unfair and abusive practices (pp.41-42). The city alleges they caused Baltimore consumers "monetary losses" and gained an advantage by operating "outside Maryland's licensing, regulatory, and consumer-protection framework applicable to licensed sportsbooks" (¶184).

Each count claims civil penalties of up to $1,000 for every violation and every day it ran (¶¶177, 187). The demand for relief, which covers every defendant, adds an injunction against operating in Baltimore and taking Baltimore residents' transactions, disgorgement, and restitution (p.45). These are the city's characterizations, and we found no answer from either Webull company.

The order pauses the whole case, but it names no defendant, so here is exactly what it says. Kalshi's two companies moved the case to federal court on August 14, where it became No. 1:26-cv-03217, and the city moved on September 14 to send it back (ECF 33, pp.1-2). On September 28 the city, KalshiEX LLC, Kalshi Inc. and Coinbase Financial Markets signed a stipulation that defines only those three companies as "Defendants" (p.1). Its first footnote reads: "Defendants Webull Corporation and Webull Financial LLC have not yet filed appearances in this action" (p.1 n.1).

The court approved it in an order dated October 1, 2026 (ECF 34). The order stays "All proceedings", including the remand briefing and "Defendants' deadlines to answer or otherwise respond", until four months from the order or the date the Supreme Court decides the last of three pending petitions, whichever is first (p.1). It does not say whether the deferred deadlines include the Webull companies', which the stipulation's definition leaves out. The stay is in force. In the text of the order we read, it sets the case schedule and directs no Webull company to take or stop any action.

Not by Webull's own account. Its Help Center, read on October 30, 2026, says: "Currently, sports-related Event Contracts are not available to residents of Nevada, Maryland, Connecticut, or Michigan." Its prediction markets page says the same of customers located in those states. We found no court order or regulator action behind that restriction, and we could not determine when it began.

The complaint, filed in August, alleges that Webull "has made sports wagering available to residents" of Baltimore (¶23, p.6). That is the city's allegation about the past. Neither Webull statement addresses other contract categories, and nothing we read in the case touches accounts, withdrawals or open positions.

In court, nothing we found. As of the September 28 filing, neither named Webull company had appeared in the federal case (ECF 33, p.1 n.1), and we could not read the docket after the October 1 order, so we cannot say whether either has filed since. The Webull pages we read say nothing about the suit.

What Webull does say is how it is regulated. Its prediction markets page describes Webull Futures LLC as "a CFTC registered Futures Commission Merchant" and a member of the National Futures Association, and the disclosure document says Webull Futures is subject to the Commodity Exchange Act and the CFTC's rules (p.6). That is Webull's description of its own registration, not a position it has taken in this case.

Two, by Webull Futures' own disclosure: Kalshi's exchange, where it is an exchange member of KalshiEX LLC and a clearing member of Kalshi Klear, and Crypto.com | Derivatives North America (North American Derivatives Exchange, or Nadex), where it is a member (p.6). Baltimore's complaint mentions only Kalshi.

Kalshi has argued its side in Maryland in its own case. In KalshiEX LLC v. Martin, it argues that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts Maryland's gaming laws as applied to its sports contracts; a federal judge denied it a preliminary injunction on August 1, 2025, finding it had "failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits" (opinion, p.1), and Kalshi appealed to the Fourth Circuit (No. 25-1892). That case is Kalshi's; no Webull company is a party. Kalshi in Maryland tracks it, and the other Baltimore defendants are on Coinbase in Maryland and, for the city's separate suit against Polymarket's companies, Polymarket in Maryland.

The order states no calendar date; four months from October 1, 2026 is February 1, 2027, and the stay ends sooner only if the Supreme Court decides the last of the three petitions first. The stipulation names them as Flaherty v. KalshiEX, North American Derivatives Exchange v. Nevada and Robinhood Derivatives v. Dreitzer (ECF 33, p.2), filed at the Supreme Court as Nos. 26-299, 26-344 and 26-338. No Webull company is a party to any of them; Kalshi at the Supreme Court follows each one.

Within seven days of the stay's end, the parties file a joint status report agreeing to a longer stay or propose a schedule for the remand motion (ECF 34, p.1). Absent agreement, the defendants then have 21 days to oppose remand and the city 21 days to reply (p.2). Webull's status in other states is on the Webull legal page.

Baltimore's case asks whether a city consumer protection ordinance and Maryland's sports wagering licensing reach the contracts Webull offers, and a state or city ruling on that is not a ruling on federal income tax. How the people we've seen file report event contracts, as gambling, capital gains on Form 8949 or Section 1256 contracts on Form 6781, is in the prediction market tax guide.