Home Crypto.com pulls prediction market and sports contracts from Arizona

Crypto.com pulls prediction market and sports contracts from Arizona

Arizona becomes the ninth state that Crypto.com has stopped offering prediction markets and sports contracts in.

As of Tuesday, December 2, for sport event contracts and Friday, December 12, for all other prediction markets, Crypto.com no longer offers its services in Arizona, making it the ninth state that it no longer operates in, as reported by Sports Betting Dime. Arizona joins Michigan, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, and New York. Only on Monday (December 15), Arizona’s regulator notified gambling firm Underdog that it intends to revoke its fantasy sports contest license.

This comes as the result of pushback from state regulators and government bodies, who argue that prediction market companies like Crypto.com are simply a means for them to offer illegal sports betting without a license. The states have one by one issued cease-and-desist notices or embarked on lawsuits to prohibit prediction markets from operating within their limits. Those lawsuits are still ongoing in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, and Ohio, with Crypto.com pausing operations in the meantime.

Why do states like Arizona take issue with prediction markets?

As a heavily regulated sector, sports betting in particular, although legal in 39 states, as well as Washington DC and Puerto Rico, requires various licenses and special regulations, depending on the state. However, prediction markets have sprung up quickly in the gray area outside of regulation.

The result is a battle about who has the right to regulate sports event contracts. Crypto.com and its competitors like Robinhood and Kalshi argue that state regulatory bodies do not have the right to override or negate the government’s authority to regulate prediction markets. Kalshi in particular has worked extensively with federal bodies like the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to sidestep the need for state-level regulation.

State bodies, on the other hand, are launching legal battles with the view that they should be able to regulate prediction markets, especially ones offering sports event contracts.

ReadWrite has reached out to Crypto.com for further comment.

Featured image: Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Rachael Davies
Freelance Journalist

Rachael Davies has spent six years reporting on tech and entertainment, writing for publications like the Evening Standard, Huffington Post, Dazed, and more. From niche topics like the latest gaming mods to consumer-faced guides on the latest tech, she puts her MA in Convergent Journalism to work, following avenues guided by a variety of interests. As well as writing, she also has experience in editing as the UK Editor of The Mary Sue , as well as speaking on the important of SEO in journalism at the Student Press Association National Conference. You can find her full portfolio over on…