Developing Louisiana Sued Ten Prediction Markets in a Parish Court. Kalshi Had Been in Federal Court for Twenty Days Predicting Exactly That, and It Still Lost the Race.

Editor's note: TrueEdge Wire's owner also builds odds tools, including a paid add-on that shows exchange prices and names Novig among its venues, and earns affiliate commissions from sportsbooks and from ProphetX. The Block lists both Novig and ProphetX among the defendants in this suit. We have argued in this space against criminalising federally licensed exchanges. Read what follows with that in mind.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced on Thursday that the state has sued "Kalshi, Polymarket, and numerous other illegal online gambling operations" in state court. "For too long, they have violated our laws with impunity," she wrote on X. "I am seeking an immediate restraining order and an injunction to restore the rule of law in Louisiana." Sports Betting Dime's Robert Linnehan reports the petition was filed in the 21st Judicial District Court in Tangipahoa Parish and asks for a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction and civil penalties.

The same day, Kalshi filed an emergency motion of its own in a different court system. We read it. It is three pages long, and one sentence in it explains the whole week: "Based on recent discussions with representatives of the state of Louisiana, Kalshi believes that the State will initiate an action against Kalshi in state court to restrict Kalshi from operating in Louisiana."

What was filed, and what we could not confirm

Start with the gaps. We have not read Louisiana's petition; no outlet we found has posted more than a description of it. The defendant list depends on who is counting. The Block names ten: Kalshi, Robinhood, Polymarket, ForecastEx, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Novig, Underdog, Gemini and ProphetX. KPLC in Lake Charles names five. Sports Betting Dime names seven and "several other" companies. We are using The Block's ten and flagging that the count is its, not ours. No report we read names the statutes the state relies on, and we do not know why the case is in Tangipahoa Parish rather than Baton Rouge.

Kalshi's side is firmer because it is a document. The motion is Document 23 in KalshiEX LLC v. Murrill, No. 1:26-cv-04476, before Judge Jerry Edwards Jr. in the Western District of Louisiana. The defendants are Murrill, Governor Jeff Landry, the Gaming Control Board, its chairman Christopher Hebert and eight members, the State Police gaming division and three other officials. It asks the court to restrain them "from pursuing any state action against Kalshi and its affiliates concerning trading on Kalshi's designated contract market," and says the company "faces imminent criminal, administrative, and forfeiture exposure." Among the lawyers on the signature page is Neal Katyal.

One ordering question matters and is unsettled. The Block says Kalshi filed after the state did. The motion is written as though the state had not yet filed. Both carry Thursday's date.

Twenty days

Kalshi's complaint in that federal case is dated October 23. According to LegalSportsBetting.com's account of it, the company told the court that state officials "will imminently bring an enforcement action," and pointed to a December 2025 advisory in which the Gaming Control Board said it "considers purported sporting event contracts and certain other event contracts as illegal gambling," and to Hebert's remark that "we are actively seeking ways to stop this." Polymarket US sued Murrill four days later in the Eastern District.

So Kalshi was right about what Louisiana would do and early by nearly three weeks. It did not help. A company that needed a fresh emergency motion on November 12 did not have an order protecting it on November 11; that is our inference from the filing, not something we read on the docket. Being first to the federal courthouse bought a case number.

Why the order of filing is the fight

Here is the argument of this piece. Louisiana's suit is less a new legal theory than a choice of room, and the choice is a good one for the state.

Every win for the exchanges that we have covered came from a federal judge accepting that the Commodity Exchange Act displaces state gambling law. In a state court, that same argument arrives as a defence to a claim under Louisiana law, in front of a judge whose daily work is Louisiana law. Massachusetts showed the pattern. Its attorney general sued Kalshi in Suffolk Superior Court in September 2025, and in January Judge Christopher Barry-Smith said he would enjoin the sports contracts, Reuters reported at the time. An Appeals Court justice stayed that order in February pending review; we have not established where it stands now.

Then there is the statute. The Anti-Injunction Act, whose first version dates to 1793, says "a court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court," with three narrow exceptions. A federal judge can, in the right case, stop state officials from starting an enforcement action. Stopping one that is already pending is a different and much harder request. If the petition in Tangipahoa was on file before Judge Edwards saw Kalshi's motion, the motion may be asking for the thing the Act forbids. That is our reading, offered as a reading. We have not seen the supporting memorandum, and Kalshi's lawyers will have an answer.

And eight of the ten defendants, on The Block's list, have no federal case in Louisiana at all. As a general rule a federal defence, preemption included, is not a ticket out of state court. For them the parish court is, for now, the only court.

The best case for Louisiana, and for the exchanges

The state's strongest argument is simple and we think partly right. Gambling is the oldest police power a state has. A civil suit in open court, with penalties and an injunction on the table, is how a state is supposed to test whether a business needs its licence. It is not Utah's felony information or Arizona's criminal case. We said of Arkansas that a civil suit is the better fight, and Louisiana gets the same credit. On the merits the state also has momentum: on Tuesday a federal judge in Manhattan held that Novig's contracts "are sports betting."

The exchanges' strongest argument is the one Coinbase's spokesperson gave The Block: this is "another example of the fragmented enforcement Congress sought to prevent," raised while several federal appeals courts are deciding the identical question. Robinhood said its contracts "are federally regulated by the CFTC." The Coalition for Prediction Markets called the suit "troubling and unlawful."

Our answer splits the difference on purpose. The suit is legitimate. The demand for an immediate restraining order is not obviously so. A temporary restraining order is for an emergency, and the Gaming Control Board put its view in writing eleven months ago. The companies it has now sued were not hiding in the meantime, and two of them, Kalshi and Polymarket US, have been in federal litigation with the state since October. Nothing changed this week except the state's readiness to file. A judge who shuts down ten businesses before hearing from them, on a question the Fifth Circuit has never addressed, would be deciding the hardest issue in American gambling law on an afternoon's notice.

What would change our mind

If the Tangipahoa court sets a prompt hearing with both sides present and rules after it, the speed objection disappears and what remains is an ordinary lawsuit. If Judge Edwards enjoins the state first, the forum question goes to the Fifth Circuit, which is where it probably belongs. And if the petition, once public, pleads a recent and specific harm to Louisiana residents, the case for emergency relief is better than it looks from a post on X. We will read it when it surfaces.