CFTC Sues Louisiana Over Prediction-Market Shutdown

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued Louisiana to stop the state blocking event contracts on federally regulated exchanges. In a 13 November 2026 press release, the agency said it had “filed a lawsuit against Louisiana to block the state from prohibiting the offering of event contracts by CFTC-regulated designated contract markets, futures commission merchants, and derivatives clearing organizations.”

The same statement said Louisiana had “obtained a state court order Thursday shutting down the operation of more than 30 companies in the state connected to the trading of CFTC-regulated derivatives products without giving the defendants notice or an opportunity to be heard.” The federal courts have not ruled on the CFTC’s case. Nothing in that filing, or in the state order as described there, has been finally decided.

The complaint says the attorney general sued 32 entities, and a court granted an ex parte order that evening

The CFTC’s complaint, filed with the United States as co-plaintiff in the Eastern District of Louisiana on 13 November (case 2:26-cv-02612), is the source used here for the state’s action. The Louisiana attorney general’s own account of that case was not obtained. On the complaint’s telling, Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a state-court enforcement action on 12 November “against 32 entities,” captioned Louisiana v. Kalshi Inc. et al., No. 20060004268, in the 21st Judicial District Court, Parish of Tangipahoa.

The complaint says the targets included CFTC-regulated designated contract markets, futures commission merchants and derivatives clearing organizations. “Later that evening,” it says, the state court granted the petition and entered an ex parte temporary restraining order stopping the defendants from, among other things, operating or otherwise facilitating any “event contract” for a person in Louisiana without a state licence and permit. An ex parte order is one granted without first hearing the other side, which is the notice point the CFTC’s press release also stresses.

The complaint also records that KalshiEX LLC had, on 12 November, already sought a temporary restraining order of its own in federal court in the Western District of Louisiana (KalshiEX LLC v. Murrill, No. 26-cv-4476) to stop what it called imminent state enforcement. That federal request, and the later CFTC suit, are separate cases. Neither is a judgment on the merits.

Chairman Selig called the state’s case “naked lawfare” and said the CFTC wants the status quo held

CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig, quoted in the 13 November release, said: “Event contracts have traded openly in Louisiana for years, in compliance with the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.” He went on: “The state’s eleventh-hour ‘emergency’ lawsuit seeking to shut down the entire prediction market industry is naked lawfare and a cynical political stunt. The Commission’s lawsuit seeks to maintain the status quo while the federal courts decide this issue in an orderly manner.”

Those are the chairman’s words, not a court’s. The release also says “Louisiana is the 12th state the CFTC has sued to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over derivatives markets as granted by Congress under the Commodity Exchange Act,” and that the agency has filed amicus briefs in four federal courts of appeal and one state supreme court. The 12th-state count continues a sequence TSN has already followed. The CFTC’s Arkansas case was the 11th, and its Utah case was the 10th.

The agency’s leadership is itself still being filled out in Washington. President Trump has nominated four people to the SEC and CFTC, with Senate confirmation still pending. That nominations story does not decide the Louisiana filing. It is the recent official context for who sits at the commission that is now asking a federal court to intervene.

Prediction markets were already operating under a federal frame in other settings. The NBA has signed a CFTC integrity pact and named preferred prediction-market partners, a reminder that the contracts now halted in Louisiana, on the CFTC’s account, are the same class of event contracts the commission treats as within its remit.

A federal lawsuit is a request to a court, not a ruling

The CFTC has taken Louisiana to federal court. That is a fact of filing, dated 13 November. It is not a finding that the state order is unlawful, and it is not a finding that the 32 entities named in the state case broke federal or state law. The press release asks the federal courts to block the state from prohibiting event contracts on CFTC-regulated venues. Until those courts speak, the accurate description is a live dispute, not a result.

The state’s own theory is known here only as the complaint describes it: an ex parte temporary restraining order, sought by the attorney general on 12 November against 32 entities, granted that evening, and aimed at event contracts offered in Louisiana without a state licence. Readers should treat that as the CFTC’s account of the state case, not as a quotation from the attorney general.

The “12th state” line is also the commission’s count. It fits the Arkansas and Utah suits TSN has already recorded as the 11th and 10th. It does not mean those earlier cases have all been won, and it does not mean this one will follow the same path. Selig’s “naked lawfare” phrase is a political characterisation from the chairman, offered in support of a request to “maintain the status quo” while federal judges hear the pre-emption fight. The next official fact to wait for is a federal court order, not another press release. Until one arrives, nothing in this fight has been decided.