What was actually in front of the court
Wisconsin moved first. RotoWire's legal timeline records the state's Department of Justice filing suits on 23 April 2026against Kalshi, Robinhood, Coinbase, Polymarket and Crypto.com over what it called “illegal sports betting” (RotoWire, 2026-04-23). Five days later the CFTC sued the state. In its own words, the Commission filed “in response to the state's lawsuits against Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Coinbase, five CFTC-regulated prediction markets,” noting the state suits had been brought “less than one week ago” and asserted “felony violations of state law” (CFTC, press release 9220-26, 2026-04-28).
The Commission's theory is the same one it has run against every state: Congress gave it exclusive jurisdiction over event contracts traded on designated contract markets, so a state cannot reach them through gambling law. Chairman Michael S. Selig put it plainly in that release: “States cannot circumvent the clear directive of Congress. Our message to Wisconsin is the same as to New York, Arizona, and others: if you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you” (CFTC, 2026-04-28). PlayUSA reported that the Department of Justice joined the Commission in the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief (PlayUSA, 2026-05-01).
On 2026-07-29that request for interim relief was refused. Coinpedia reports Judge Griesbach found that registration with the CFTC does not automatically shield the platforms from state gambling laws, that the Commodity Exchange Act does not automatically cancel Wisconsin's gambling rules, that the plain language of those rules could cover sports-related event contracts, and that the CFTC had not shown enough irreparable harm to justify blocking enforcement. Coinpedia also reports the court rejected motions by Kalshi and Crypto.com to intervene in the Commission's case (Coinpedia, 2026-07-29). We could not read the order, so each of those is the reporting's account of the court's reasoning rather than the court's own language, and this page carries no quotation from it.
The divergence, dated
The reason this ruling matters is not its size — it is an interim order in one district — but its direction. Within seventy-two hours two federal judges took the same federal statute and the same pre-emption argument and went opposite ways, and an appellate court has already answered the question a third way. That is the state of the record, laid out by date:
RotoWire records the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issuing the first federal appellate ruling holding that the Commodity Exchange Act pre-empts state gambling laws as applied to contracts traded on CFTC-registered exchanges, in the New Jersey case.
Source: RotoWire (legal timeline)
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres denied Kalshi's motion for a preliminary injunction, ruling that New York's gambling laws are not pre-empted by the Commodity Exchange Act. RotoWire dates the order 9 July; Gambling Insider, reporting on a later motion, also refers to “the order she made on July 9.”
Source: RotoWire (legal timeline)
A Washington state judge granted a preliminary injunction against Kalshi and expressly rejected the pre-emption argument, writing that “the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) does not preempt Washington State gambling law” and that “regulation of gambling and regulation of futures markets are different fields of regulation.” This is a state court, not a federal one.
Source: Gambling Insider
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez granted the CFTC, Kalshi and Polymarket a preliminary injunction blocking Minnesota's felony ban days before its 1 August effective date. Gambling Insider reports the ruling ran to 44 pages and included the observation that if the platforms' contracts do not fit the federal definition, “Plaintiffs have much weaker claims that the CFTC is the only authority that can regulate them.”
Source: Gambling Insider
Hours after the Minnesota order, Judge Torres denied Kalshi an injunction pending appeal, in a three-page order finding it sought “the very injunctive relief that (this) court already denied” and that “defendants have laid out significant harms associated with halting their efforts to enforce state gaming regulations.” Gambling Insider reports Kalshi had by then filed its appeal to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
Source: Gambling Insider
Two days after Minnesota, Judge Griesbach refused the CFTC the relief Judge Menendez had granted it. Coinpedia reports the court found that registration with the CFTC does not automatically shield platforms from state gambling laws, that the Commodity Exchange Act does not automatically displace Wisconsin's gambling rules, that the plain language of those rules could cover sports-related event contracts, and that the CFTC had not shown enough irreparable harm.
Source: Coinpedia
The labels above record which way each order ran. They are not a score, and the list is not a prediction: an appellate ruling outranks a district order, an interim order outranks nothing, and several of these are on appeal. For the durable state-by-state reference rather than this single dated ruling, see is Polymarket & Kalshi legal; for the order that ran the other way two days earlier, see the Minnesota injunction.