Connecticut cease-and-desist letters (December 2025)

Overview

On December 2, 2025 Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection sent identical cease-and-desist letters to Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com, ordering them to stop advertising and offering sports event contracts to Connecticut residents. The letters (DCP Case No. 2025-77, signed by Gaming Director Kristofer Gilman) called the contracts unlicensed online gambling under Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 53-278b and 53-278d and an unfair trade practice under CUTPA, and warned of civil and criminal penalties.

That letter set everything else in Connecticut moving. Kalshi sued the state’s regulators the next day and lost its injunction in August 2026; Coinbase Financial Markets, which did not receive a letter but was about to distribute the same contracts, sued on December 18 and lost the same day on the same reasoning; the United States and the CFTC sued Connecticut in April 2026. The cease-and-desist was not superseded by that federal suit — Connecticut went on to sue Kalshi directly in August 2026.

Timeline

What's next: Not superseded: Connecticut converted the cease-and-desist into its own enforcement action against Kalshi in Hartford Superior Court in August 2026, which Kalshi removed to the District of Connecticut (No. 3:26-cv-01382). In September 2026 the Department issued a second round of orders to nine more platforms.

Parties