Baltimore is taking Kalshi and Polymarket to court, alleging the prediction-market companies are effectively running illegal sportsbooks while describing their products as legitimate financial contracts.
Mayor Brandon M. Scott and the Baltimore City Council filed separate lawsuits Thursday in Baltimore City Circuit Court. Both cases accuse the platforms of violating the city’s Consumer Protection Ordinance because they allegedly offer sports betting without Maryland licenses and misrepresent the products’ legality.
The Polymarket lawsuit names QCX LLC, Blockratize Inc. and QC Tech LLC. Baltimore’s Kalshi case also targets Robinhood, Webull and Coinbase entities, which the city alleges helped Baltimore residents access Kalshi contracts.
“While Defendants call the Kalshi platform a ‘prediction market,’ the platform plainly facilitates ‘sports wagering’ as defined under Maryland law,” the Kalshi complaint says. The Polymarket complaint makes the same allegation about that platform.
According to both lawsuits, customers can bet on game results, in-game events, proposition bets and parlays. Maryland allows licensed sports wagering, but Baltimore argues neither prediction market has the necessary state license.
“These companies are running sportsbooks without licenses and betting that a new label will put them above the law,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “It won’t. Baltimore will not let multibillion-dollar companies put profits over people and harm our communities through illegal gambling.”
Baltimore regulators say Polymarket and Kalshi sports contracts amount to unlicensed wagering
Baltimore is also challenging how the companies allegedly expose customers to risks that licensed sportsbooks must address. The Polymarket lawsuit says everyday traders can face sophisticated participants using proprietary information, predictive models and advanced technology, while also raising manipulation and insider-trading concerns.
Polymarket’s alleged omissions had the “capacity, tendency, and effect of deceiving and misleading consumers” about the legality and risks of its products, the complaint says. Baltimore claims the top 0.04% of Polymarket users collect more than 70% of trading gains.
The Kalshi filing says the “vast majority” of gamblers lose money and alleges Kalshi acknowledged that losers outnumber profitable users by nearly three to one.
Maryland regulators had already taken a similar position. The Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency sent Kalshi a cease-and-desist letter in April 2025, concluding that buying its sports contracts was “indistinguishable from the act of placing a sports wager.”
That position widened in November 2025, when the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission warned licensees against facilitating unlicensed prediction markets. “The Commission has determined that a sporting event contract offered on a designated contract market (“DCM”) without a valid Maryland sports wagering license is an “illegal activity” in our state because this is unlawful sports wagering.”
“Kalshi and Polymarket cannot circumvent Baltimore’s consumer protections by repackaging gambling as something else or claiming federal regulation puts them beyond the reach of our laws,” said City Solicitor Ebony M. Thompson. “The City will continue to use its consumer protection authority to stop deceptive and unlawful conduct and hold companies accountable when they put our residents at risk.”
“Allowing prediction market companies to evade gambling laws would set a dangerous precedent far beyond Baltimore,” said DiCello Levitt Founding Partner Adam Levitt. “These companies cannot be permitted to use new terminology and new technology to operate outside the rules designed to protect consumers and communities.”
Baltimore wants civil penalties, restitution, disgorgement of allegedly improper gains and injunctions blocking unauthorized sports wagering. In the Kalshi case, it is seeking up to $1,000 for every ordinance violation and each day that violation continued.
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