Mayor Brandon Scott and the Baltimore City Council are suing Kalshi, Polymarket, and their affiliated companies over alleged illegal sports betting and prediction market gambling operations.
The lawsuits, filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, accuse the companies of violating Baltimore’s Consumer Protection Ordinance by “operating illegal, unlicensed sports-betting platforms and misleading consumers about the legality and regulatory status of their products,” according to a news release.
Kalshi and Polymarket allows users to wager on game winners, point spreads, point totals, player statistics, and other propositions that licensed sportsbooks commonly offer.
The companies describe these wagers as “event contracts” or prediction-market trades. However, Baltimore officials say they function as sports betting and are forms of illegal gambling under Maryland law.
“These companies are running sportsbooks without licenses and betting that a new label will put them above the law,” Scott said. “It won’t. Baltimore will not let multibillion-dollar companies put profits over people and harm our communities through illegal gambling.”
The legal team for these lawsuits is led by the Baltimore City Law Department’s Ebony M. Thompson, Sara Gross, and Thomas Webb and DiCello Levitt’s Adam Levitt, Dan Ferri, Joseph “JJ” Nelson, and Andrea Shang.
“Kalshi and Polymarket cannot circumvent Baltimore’s consumer protections by repackaging gambling as something else or claiming federal regulation puts them beyond the reach of our laws,” City Solicitor Ebony M. Thompson said. “The City will continue to use its consumer protection authority to stop deceptive and unlawful conduct and hold companies accountable when they put our residents at risk.”
“Allowing prediction market companies to evade gambling laws would set a dangerous precedent far beyond Baltimore,” said DiCello Levitt Founding Partner Adam Levitt. “These companies cannot be permitted to use new terminology and new technology to operate outside the rules designed to protect consumers and communities.”
