New York wants $100,000 for every sports market Polymarket listed

New York sued Polymarket US on 24 September, and the headline claim is unlicensed gambling. The number to read is further down the list of remedies: $100,000 for each offering, or attempted offering, of an unauthorised sports contract. Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul filed against QCX LLC, the entity doing business as Polymarket US.

“We believe in New York and we're staying here. While the AG's decision to copy and paste a recycled lawsuit is disappointing, we'll fight for our users.”

— Polymarket, chief legal officer

Chief legal officer of Polymarket, on the New York suit

The state asks the court for:

• A permanent injunction barring Polymarket from operating in New York.
• Full restitution to users, plus damages and disgorgement of the gains.
• A penalty equal to three times the profits from the conduct.
• $100,000 for each offering, or attempted offering, of an unauthorised sports contract.

Three of those four are bounded by what Polymarket earned. The fourth is bounded by the sports calendar. An NFL regular season runs 272 games, the NBA 1,230 and MLB 2,430, which is 3,932 games across one season of the three largest American leagues. At $100,000 an offering that comes to $393.2m, and only if a court counts one offering per game. Spreads, totals and player props are separate contracts and are not in that figure.

Two courts on the same day

Polymarket answered in two directions at once. It filed to remove the case from state court in Manhattan to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, and it sued James and officials of the New York State Gaming Commission, arguing that the Commodity Exchange Act hands the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over event contracts traded on federally regulated venues and pre-empts state gambling law. QCX has held a CFTC designated contract market licence since July 2025, and Polymarket US opened in December 2025. New York is asking a court to shut down an exchange the federal government designated.

The company's chief legal officer called the filing a recycled lawsuit, which has a factual basis: New York sued Kalshi on similar grounds around two months earlier. Polymarket also has the balance sheet to argue the point for years, having raised $1bn at a $21bn valuation at the start of this month. Against that valuation, a $393.2m season penalty is 1.9%, which is why the jurisdictional question matters more than the arithmetic.

Which end of the pipe

Each regulator reaches for a different end of the pipe. In Korea, prosecutors went after the customers: 26 Polymarket users charged, with a maximum fine of $7,238 each. New York is going after the operator and pricing a single listed market at $100,000, which is 13.8 times the most a Korean user can be fined for trading in one.

Neither court has ruled on whether a CFTC designation pre-empts a state gambling statute, and that question decides the shape of the American prediction market business. The size of one penalty does not. Polymarket argues the federal licence settles it, while New York argues that a licence to list derivatives says nothing about taking bets from people under 21. Both suits are in front of judges now.

Informational material, not investment advice. The season totals below are our arithmetic on published schedules and assume the court counts one offering per game, which no filing has established.