Overview
The first prediction-market case filed in Illinois, and the one that has waited longest for an answer. Coinbase Financial Markets, Inc. — Coinbase’s CFTC-registered futures commission merchant, a broker rather than an exchange — sued the Attorney General and the Illinois Gaming Board in December 2025 for declaratory and injunctive relief, six months before Kalshi did and four before the federal government sued the state. Its preliminary-injunction motion was fully briefed by February 2026.
All three Illinois cases now sit with Judge Martha M. Pacold: she took the United States’ suit as related in June 2026, keeping both dockets open, and Kalshi’s was reassigned to her in July. In July 2026 she told the parties that "[a]cross two cases and several different motions for a preliminary injunction, one of which has already been argued and briefed, there seems to be substantial overlap in merits issues," and set a status hearing on how to resolve them efficiently.
The docket since has been a stream of supplemental authority filed against Coinbase as other courts ruled — Kalshi v. Cox, Kalshi v. Williams, QCX v. Nessel, Robinhood v. Nessel, Coinbase v. Nessel, Kalshi v. Cafferelli, Coinbase v. Tong and, on August 28, 2026, the Ninth Circuit’s Assad. No ruling on the injunction has issued.