Dashboard/Prediction markets/Minnesota injunction

Dated event · 2026-07-27 · prediction-market regulation

Minnesota's prediction-market ban blocked days before it took effect

Minnesota's felony ban on prediction-market platforms was due to take effect on 1 August 2026. On Monday 27 July, four days out, a federal judge granted the CFTC, Kalshi and Polymarket a preliminary injunction and the state is blocked from enforcing it. Here is what was enjoined, what the order does not settle, and where the rest of the map stands.

Every external fact below was fetched and read on 2026-07-28 from the source named beside it. This is information, not legal or betting advice.

What this decides — and what it does not

A preliminary injunction is not a final ruling. It is interim relief that holds things in place while the case is litigated. FOX 9 reports the order bars enforcement “until a final decision on the merits is reached in these cases” — which is the court saying, in the order itself, that the merits are still ahead of it.

So: the statute has not been struck down, repealed, or declared unconstitutional. The pre-emption question at the centre of the case — whether the federal Commodity Exchange Act displaces a state law like this one — has not been finally answered. What changed on 27 July is that Minnesota may not enforce the law for now. Nothing on this page is a prediction of how the case ends, and nothing on it is legal advice.

The order says the same thing about itself, in its closing lines: “The Court's determination is not a final determination of the merits of the parties' claims and defenses, but reflects a preliminary assessment of the issues.” Read from the order on 2026-08-02.

Update · 2026-07-30

Two days after this order, a federal judge in Wisconsin went the other way: on 29 July 2026 the court denied the CFTC a preliminary injunction against that state, refusing the Commission the kind of relief it was granted here (Coinpedia, 2026-07-29). Neither order decides the pre-emption question, and neither binds the other court. Nothing on this page has been rewritten — the account below still carries its 2026-07-28 verification — but the two rulings should be read together: the Wisconsin ruling, and what it does not decide.

From the order itself

This page shipped on 2026-07-28 without the order, because we could not open it. We read the signed 44-page document in full on 2026-08-02. Nothing below is reporting about the ruling — it is the ruling. The section that follows keeps the contemporaneous reporting separate, so you can see which is which.

3 cases

The caption, in full

The order is captioned in three related cases in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota: United States of America and Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. State of Minnesota, et al., No. 26-cv-2661 (KMM/DTS); KalshiEX LLC v. Keith Ellison, in his official capacity as Attorney General of Minnesota, et al., No. 26-cv-2778 (KMM/DTS); and QCX LLC, doing business as Polymarket US, v. Keith Ellison, et al., No. 26-cv-2841 (KMM/DTS). The named defendants across the three are the State of Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, and Jon Anglin, Director of its Alcohol and Gambling Division.

Doc. 48

The document, dated and signed

Docketed in Case 0:26-cv-02841-KMM-DTS as Doc. 48, filed 07/27/26, running to 44 pages, and titled “ORDER ON PLAINTIFFS’ MOTIONS FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION.” It is signed “Date: July 27, 2026 · s/Katherine Menendez · United States District Judge,” and it grants three separate motions: CFTC (Dkt. 24), Kalshi (Dkt. 21) and Polymarket (Dkt. 19).

DCMs only

The operative scope — narrower than the headlines

This is the detail no report we read stated, and it materially limits the order. The decretal paragraph reads in full: “Until a final decision on the merits is reached in these cases, Defendants are enjoined from enforcing Minn. Stat. § 609.7615, as amended and adopted by SF 3432, against entities that are registered as designated contract markets by the CFTC.” The injunction therefore protects CFTC-registered designated contract markets. It is not an order that the statute may not be enforced at large.

at least in part

How far the likelihood finding actually goes

The court states its own holding with an express limit: Plaintiffs “have met their burden to show they are likely to succeed, at least in part, on their express-preemption claims, that they face a threat of irreparable harm, and that the balance of harms and the public interest weigh in favor of entering a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of Minnesota’s prediction market statute until a final decision on the merits is reached.” Later the order puts the same point as the statute being “likely at least partially preempted by the CEA.”

Not reached

The First Amendment and implied-preemption claims

The order rests on express preemption alone. “Because Plaintiffs have shown they are likely to succeed on the merits of their express-preemption claims and are otherwise entitled to preliminary injunctive relief, the Court finds it unnecessary to address, at this stage, whether Plaintiffs are also likely to prevail on their implied-preemption argument or their First Amendment claims.” The court adds that the First Amendment claims “have not arisen in the dozen or so other prediction-market cases explored by the parties” and that “the questions raised are complex.”

No bond

Security waived under Rule 65(c)

Polymarket US asked the court to waive the security requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c). The order records that “Defendants have not objected to that request for waiver of bond, and the Court finds it appropriate to waive the security requirement under the circumstances,” so Plaintiffs were not required to give security against having wrongfully enjoined the state.

Source: Order on Plaintiffs' Motions for Preliminary Injunction (PDF) · D. Minn., Doc. 48, filed 07/27/26 · read 2026-08-02

The ruling, as reported at the time

27 Jul 2026

Preliminary injunction granted

On Monday 27 July 2026 a federal judge granted a motion for a preliminary injunction blocking Minnesota's prediction-market law from going into effect. FOX 9 reports that the ruling bars the state from enforcing the law “until a final decision on the merits is reached in these cases.”

Source: FOX 9 · as of 2026-07-27

01 Aug 2026

The effective date it pre-empted

The statute was due to take effect on 1 August 2026, alongside a batch of other new Minnesota laws. The injunction was issued four days before that date.

Source: FOX 9 · as of 2026-07-27

SF 3432

The statute that was enjoined

The law at issue is Minnesota SF 3432. Courthouse News, reporting from the 2 July hearing, describes it as making it a felony to create, operate, manage or control a prediction-market platform — the nation's first outright ban on the platforms.

Source: Courthouse News Service · as of 2026-07-02

3 movants

CFTC, Kalshi and Polymarket

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Kalshi and Polymarket each filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. The three motions were argued together before U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez on 2 July 2026, after which she took the matter under advisement.

Source: Courthouse News Service · as of 2026-07-02

19 May 2026

When the CFTC sued Minnesota

The CFTC announced its suit on 19 May 2026, saying it sought a preliminary injunction to stop the law going into effect on 1 August 2026 and calling the statute broader in reach than any other state law it had sued over, including its treatment of weather-related event contracts.

Source: CFTC (press release 9233-26) · as of 2026-05-19

5 years

Maximum prison term the ban carried

Crypto Briefing reports the ban, signed by Governor Tim Walz on 18 May 2026, would have made operating or advertising such a platform a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Source: Crypto Briefing · as of 2026-07-27

What was enjoined, precisely

The law is Minnesota SF 3432. Reporting from the 2 July hearing, Courthouse News describes it as making it a felony to create, operate, manage or control a prediction-market platform — “effectively forcing these exchanges to exit the state or face charges” — and identifies it as the nation's first outright ban on the platforms (Courthouse News, 2026-07-02). Crypto Briefing reports it was signed by Governor Tim Walz on 18 May 2026 and that operating or advertising a platform would have been a felony carrying up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine (Crypto Briefing, 2026-07-27).

Minnesota describes its own statute more narrowly than “prediction markets are banned.” In the Attorney General's own words, the state “passed a law making it a felony to offer or facilitate certain forms of event contracts – those involving sports, political, cultural, entertainment, legal, and catastrophic events – while leaving untouched commodity futures and other contracts used to manage financial, economic, or commercial risk” (Office of the Minnesota Attorney General, 2026-06-18). Courthouse News records the state making the same point at the hearing: agricultural risk-hedging transactions and standard securities and commodities transactions were not restricted by the ban. The federal side disputed that the carve-out worked: the CFTC said the law reached CFTC-regulated markets more broadly than any other state law it had sued over, “including criminalizing weather-related event contracts” (CFTC, press release 9233-26, 2026-05-19).

The 1 August date the order pre-empted

SF 3432 was due to commence on 1 August 2026, alongside a batch of other new Minnesota laws taking effect the same day (FOX 9, 2026-07-27). Every filing in the case was timed against that date: the CFTC said on 19 May that it was “seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the law from going into effect on August 1, 2026” (CFTC, 2026-05-19), and the Attorney General's office described the three motions as seeking “to temporarily prevent the statute from taking effect on August 1, while the full scope of the lawsuit plays out” (Minnesota Attorney General, 2026-06-18). The order landed on 27 July — four days before the deadline it was aimed at.

The parties: CFTC, Kalshi, Polymarket — and the State

Three separate challengers moved against the same statute. The CFTCfiled the day after the bill was signed, framing the law as an intrusion on federal jurisdiction over derivatives; its chairman, Michael S. Selig, said the law “turns lawful operators and participants in prediction markets into felons overnight” (CFTC, 2026-05-19). Kalshi and Polymarketfiled their own suits in the following weeks, arguing their event contracts are “swaps” under the federal Commodity Exchange Act and that a state cannot regulate agreements traded on a designated contract market; Polymarket also raised a First Amendment argument about the ban on advertising, which the judge noted had likely not been argued in other prediction-market challenges (Courthouse News, 2026-07-02).

Minnesotaargued it was exercising its historic police powers over gambling, and that the platforms could comply by geo-blocking the state. After the ruling, Attorney General Keith Ellison said the state “respectfully disagree[s] with the Court's determination that the proper ‘status quo’ to maintain is one that allows predatory gambling apps to proliferate,” while acknowledging that “the Court has been presented with complex legal issues that are difficult to decide quickly and without a fully developed record,” and said the state would continue to litigate (FOX 9 and ABC 6 News, 2026-07-27). The three motions were argued together on 2 July 2026 before U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, who took them under advisement (Courthouse News, 2026-07-02).

The multi-state picture this sits inside

Minnesota is one front of many, and the results have not all run the same way. In its 19 May release the CFTC said a federal court in Arizona had recently issued a preliminary injunction blocking that state from using its gambling laws to criminally prosecute prediction-market operators, and that the Commission had also sued Connecticut, Illinois and New York and filed amicus briefs in the Sixth and Ninth Circuits and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (CFTC, 2026-05-19).

The operators are litigating on their own account too. Kalshi sued the Ohio Casino Control Commission in state court to block administrative proceedings seeking a $5 million civil penalty, after the commission accused it of offering unlicensed sports betting; Kalshi argues the proceedings improperly target federally regulated event contracts (Gambling Insider, 2026-07-03). Polymarket sued New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez and state gaming officials in federal court, arguing the state's suit against Kalshi and its refusal to delay enforcement created an immediate threat of enforcement against Polymarket (Gambling Insider, 2026-07-03). The same roundup records losses on the other side of the ledger — a Michigan restraining order requiring Kalshi to stop offering sports contracts in the state, and the Nevada Supreme Court denying Kalshi an emergency stay. Courthouse News adds that the Third Circuit ruled for Kalshi against New Jersey in April, while courts in Nevada, Michigan and Massachusetts have produced early wins for states (Courthouse News, 2026-07-02).

For the durable state-by-state reference rather than this single dated ruling, see is Polymarket & Kalshi legal.

What we could not verify

An honest gap beats a confident error — and when a gap closes, that gets said too. On 2026-07-28we could not read the order or the docket directly: the CourtListener docket page, the Star Tribune report and the NBC News report each returned no readable content to us. So this page shipped with no docket number, no page cite, no quotation from the order beyond the single phrase FOX 9 quoted, and no statement of the injunction's operative scope.

That gap is now closed. On 2026-08-02 we fetched and read the signed 44-page order in full. Everything in “From the order itself” above is read off that document. Nothing we published on 2026-07-28 has been withdrawn: the primary confirmed the reporting, and it added the one thing none of the reporting stated — that the injunction runs against enforcement of the statute against CFTC-registered designated contract markets, rather than at large.

What we still have not done, so that this section stays honest rather than becoming a victory lap: we have not read the docket sheets in any of the three cases. We therefore say nothing about what has been filed since 27 July 2026, including whether any notice of appeal exists. We record no such filing because we have not seen one — not because none exists. We also note that a run of secondary reports appeared on 31 July and 1 August 2026; we checked each and they describe this same 27 July order, not a later event.

What Monitoring shows — and what it doesn't

Monitoring reports what has been filed, argued and ordered, each with a date and a named source. It does not forecast the outcome of this or any case, does not price it, does not take a position on whether the statute should stand, and does not tell any reader whether they may lawfully trade anywhere. Where a court order and a party's characterisation of it differ, both are attributed above and the reader is left to weigh them.

Added 2026-08-01 · a related federal action

Thirteen days before this order, on 14 July 2026, the CFTC acted in a different forum and a different posture. It stayed an emergency rule KalshiEX had filed to force-liquidate trades already executed by Michigan residents, and separately ordered the exchange to fulfil those trades instead. That action is recorded — with its dates, its case number and its quotations taken off the Commission's own order rather than reporting — on the CFTC stay of the Kalshi rule. It is a regulator acting on a rule filing, not a court ruling on pre-emption, and it does not bear on what this court decided.

Keep reading

The CFTC stay of the Kalshi rule →

14 July 2026 — the Commission stops a state-ordered unwind of executed trades. Quoted from the order itself.

Wisconsin, two days later →

The 29 July 2026 order that ran the opposite way — the CFTC's injunction refused.

Is Polymarket & Kalshi legal? →

The durable state-by-state reference: the CFTC-vs-states jurisdiction fight, cited and dated.

Prediction markets: volumes & trends →

The category at scale — combined venue volumes and the record World Cup spike.

Accuracy ledger →

What the market priced before an event resolved — recorded in advance, with sources.

How prediction markets work →

A plain-English guide to reading an implied probability.

Common questions

Has Minnesota's prediction-market ban been struck down?

No. What was granted on 27 July 2026 is a preliminary injunction, which pauses enforcement while the lawsuits continue. FOX 9 reports the order blocks the state from enforcing the law “until a final decision on the merits is reached in these cases” (FOX 9, 2026-07-27). The underlying question — whether federal law pre-empts the statute — has not been finally decided, and the statute has not been repealed or invalidated.

What does a preliminary injunction decide, and what does it leave open?

A preliminary injunction is an interim order that holds a situation in place while a case is litigated; courts weigh factors including whether the moving party is likely to succeed and whether it would suffer irreparable harm without the order. Crypto Briefing reports the court agreed the operators had shown a likelihood of success on their federal-preemption claim and that letting the law take effect would cause irreparable harm to their businesses (Crypto Briefing, 2026-07-27). “Likely to succeed” is a threshold for interim relief — it is not a final judgment, and the merits remain pending. This is a general description of the procedural posture, not legal advice.

What did the State of Minnesota say?

Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement reported by FOX 9 and ABC 6 News on 27 July 2026: “Prediction markets are gambling, plain and simple, and Minnesota has every right to keep predatory gambling out of our communities. We respectfully disagree with the Court's determination that the proper ‘status quo’ to maintain is one that allows predatory gambling apps to proliferate. However, we also acknowledge that the Court has been presented with complex legal issues that are difficult to decide quickly and without a fully developed record. We look forward to continuing to litigate this case and defend the State's duly passed law.”

Does Monitoring say how this case will end?

No. Monitoring reports what has been filed, argued and ordered, with the date and the source for each. It does not predict the outcome of litigation, does not price it, does not tell anyone whether they may lawfully trade anywhere, and is not affiliated with any exchange or platform. This page is information and entertainment, not legal or betting advice.

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This page describes publicly reported court filings, orders and statements, each attributed to a named external source with an as-of date. Legal proceedings develop and a preliminary injunction can be modified, dissolved or appealed; the position may have changed since 2026-07-28. This page is information and entertainment only: it is not legal advice, not betting or financial advice, not a recommendation to wager, not a prediction of any case outcome, and not a determination of whether you may lawfully trade in your jurisdiction. For your own situation, check the current position where you are or seek qualified professional advice. Monitoring is not affiliated with any exchange, platform, or bookmaker.

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