PrizePicks chose to stop offering sports event contracts in Missouri even though Attorney General Catherine Hanaway did not include the company in a cease-and-desist wave to prediction markets last month.
A PrizePicks spokesperson confirmed the company emailed Missouri customers Tuesday that it suspended Team Picks, its sports prediction markets product.
The email said that “due to updated legal requirements for prediction markets in Missouri, PrizePicks is required to suspend Team Picks in the state.” It told users they could no longer “submit new Team Picks while located in the state of Missouri.”
According to the company:
- Entries already submitted will stay active
- Winning picks will pay out when the market closes
- Users can withdraw funds at any time
Culture Picks, PrizePicks’ prediction markets on entertainment and other non-sports events, are still available in the state, according to the PrizePicks website.
Missouri prediction markets enforcement
Last month, Hanaway’s office sent cease-and-desist letters to:
- Crypto.com
- Kalshi
- Novig
- Polymarket
- Robinhood
- Underdog
The letters argue that their sports event contracts are unlicensed sports wagering. Hanaway gave the recipients a month to show they comply with Missouri law or stop offering sports wagering in the state.
Why PrizePicks moved first
The Missouri Gaming Commission licensed PrizePicks as a daily fantasy sports operator in 2024, and its Player Picks DFS product is still live in the state. That is the same commission Hanaway says must license anyone offering sports wagering.
Team Picks also does not run on a PrizePicks exchange. The product is offered through PrizePicks’ subsidiary, Performance Predictions II, which is a futures commission merchant that PrizePicks uses to sell Kalshi contracts inside its app.
Other intermediaries have made similar moves elsewhere. Robinhood agreed last month to stop offering new sports event contracts in Michigan. Connecticut officials said Gemini and Webull withdrew after the state’s cease-and-desist orders.
The companies selling these contracts often pull back faster than the exchanges that list them, especially when they hold licenses in the state or want to keep them.
Kalshi makes its case in the media
Kalshi was the first of the six letter recipients to publicly respond. The company sent Head of Research Nicole Kagan to talk with Missouri media this week.
In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, Kagan compared Kalshi’s contracts to the agricultural exchanges farmers use to hedge crops. She argued that the platform does not set odds and does not make money when customers lose.
“[A sports book’s] incentive, of course, is for you to lose and to engage users on their platform that are losing over and over and over again, right? That’s who they want to retain,” Kagan said. “On our platform, what we’re running is a peer-to-peer exchange. So we’re not the house. We’re not setting pricing. And what that means is when you’re coming to our platform, you’re actually just matching with somebody who has an opposing opinion to you.”
What Missouri AG says about predictions
Hanaway’s case rests mostly on licensing, taxes and age. Missouri voters legalized sports betting in 2024 with a 21-and-over minimum age, and the state’s sportsbooks pay a 10% tax on gross receipts.
Prediction markets allow users as young as 18. Hanaway’s office said five of the six operators, including Kalshi, either let underage users in or lack adequate safeguards to keep Missourians under 21 off their platforms.
“Companies cannot repackage sports bets as ‘event contracts’ to avoid Missouri law,” Hanaway said when announcing the letters.
The issue of sports event contracts appears destined for the U.S. Supreme Court, as Circuit Court of Appeals rulings are split on whether states or the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission have jurisdiction over prediction markets. The Sixth and Ninth Circuits have both ruled that states can enforce their gambling laws against these products.
The Third Circuit ruled for Kalshi in its New Jersey case. New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, as have multiple other parties.
Ohio’s regulator used the Sixth Circuit decision to send cease-and-desist letters to 10 prediction market companies last week. Kalshi’s case against Ohio was one of the cases used in the circuit’s ruling.
