Nevada State Court Issues Temporary Restraining Order Against Polymarket, Testing CFTC Regulatory Authority

PANews February 3 News, according to Cointelegraph, a Nevada court has issued a 14-day temporary restraining order against the operators of prediction market platform Polymarket, Blockratize, requiring them to immediately cease offering event-based contract trading to residents of the state. The court’s order found that the sports and other event market contracts provided by Polymarket constitute unlicensed gambling rather than regulated financial products. The judge noted that allowing the platform to continue operating without a gambling license would cause “immediate” and “irreparable” harm to Nevada’s ability to regulate gambling integrity, prevent underage gambling, and enforce suitability standards. Based on this, the court dismissed Blockratize’s defense that the Commodity Exchange Act grants the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) exclusive jurisdiction over its event contracts, ruling that state gambling laws still apply.