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.
On October 2, 2026 Judge Pacold decided all three Illinois injunction motions in one opinion, granting each in part and continuing it in part. Both sides had argued over a representative title contract (“will the Chicago Cubs win the 2026 World Series?”), and she held such contracts are likely “swaps” under the Commodity Exchange Act, so Illinois’s sports-wagering licensing rules and the related criminal provision are likely preempted as applied to them. She did not decide the challenge to Illinois’s fees, including the new 1.75% and 3.5% prediction-market transaction fees, and ordered further argument: a fee “without more” might not conflict with federal law, but a sufficiently heavy one could. In an October 8 joint report, all parties, Illinois included, said further fee briefing is unnecessary because the transaction taxes apply only to licensees. The ruling cuts against the Sixth Circuit’s September 25 decision and the Wisconsin district court’s July denial, and it is not binding outside this court. (Read from the memorandum opinion and order, filed in all three cases.)
On October 30, 2026 Judge Pacold granted Coinbase’s motion and entered the preliminary injunction (ECF 98), identical in all three Illinois cases. It expressly reaches swaps “listed on or available through Designated Contract Markets and Futures Commission Merchants” regulated by the CFTC, so it covers brokers like Coinbase Financial Markets as well as exchanges, and it bars licensing requirements, associated fees, taxes, related criminal provisions and compulsory investigative process. Attorney General Raoul and the Gaming Board members appealed to the Seventh Circuit the same day. It is a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment.