PrizePicks suspends Team Picks in Missouri after new legal interpretation

PrizePicks suspended on 6 October 2026 the sale of its sports prediction-market product Team Picks to customers located in Missouri, a company spokesperson confirmed by email to users in the state. The communication explained that “due to updated legal requirements for prediction markets in Missouri, PrizePicks is required to suspend Team Picks in the state.” The firm clarified that entries already submitted will remain active, winning selections will be paid at market close, and users may withdraw funds at any time.

Why PrizePicks stopped Team Picks in Missouri

PrizePicks made the decision despite Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway not including PrizePicks in the initial wave of cease-and-desist letters sent the previous month to prediction-market operators. Hanaway addressed those letters to Crypto.com, Kalshi, Novig, Polymarket, Robinhood and Underdog, arguing that their contracts on sporting events constitute unlicensed sports betting under Missouri law.

The company continues to offer its Player Picks product in the state because the Missouri Gaming Commission licensed PrizePicks as a daily fantasy sports (DFS) operator in 2024. That licence is distinct from the authorization, which the attorney general says is required for anyone offering sports betting. Team Picks is offered through the subsidiary Performance Predictions II, an entity that operates as a futures commission merchant and that PrizePicks uses to sell Kalshi contracts inside its app.

How this affects Missouri users and the Team Picks product

PrizePicks said Missouri customers can no longer “submit new Team Picks while located in the state.” The company’s operational terms communicated to users state:

• entries already submitted will remain active;

• winning selections will be paid at market close; and

• users may withdraw funds at any time.

PrizePicks’ website indicates that Culture Picks, its prediction-market offering on entertainment and other non-sporting events, remains available in Missouri.

The regulatory offensive in Missouri and Kalshi’s response

Hanaway’s action focuses on three axes: licensing, tax burdens and minimum age. Missouri legalised sports betting in 2024 with a minimum age of 21 and a tax of 10% on sportsbooks’ gross receipts. The attorney general’s letters note that five of the six notified platforms, including Kalshi, permit access to 18-year-old users or lack sufficient safeguards to prevent participation by those under 21.

“Companies cannot repack sports betting as ‘event contracts’ to evade Missouri law,” Catherine Hanaway said when announcing the letters.

Kalshi was the first of the six companies to respond publicly and sent its head of research, Nicole Kagan, to Missouri media this week. In an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, Kagan compared Kalshi’s contracts to agricultural markets used by farmers to hedge crops and defended the platform as operating like a peer-to-peer exchange.

“On our platform what we operate is a peer-to-peer exchange. We are not the house. We do not set prices,” Nicole Kagan said.

Kagan said Kalshi does not charge fees nor profit when customers lose, and that its model consists of matching users with opposing views.

Other market moves and legal precedents

Operators and intermediaries have reacted cautiously across different states. Robinhood recently agreed to stop offering new event contracts on sports in Michigan. Connecticut authorities reported that Gemini and Webull withdrew after receiving cease-and-desist orders from the state. In general, companies that sell contracts tend to withdraw them faster than exchanges that list them, especially when they want to preserve state licences.

The legal dispute around prediction markets has escalated to the federal appeals system. The circuit courts are split: the Sixth and Ninth Circuits have held that states may apply their gaming laws to these products; the Third Circuit ruled for Kalshi in its New Jersey case. New Jersey has asked the US Supreme Court to resolve the conflict, and several parties have petitioned for supreme review.

The Sixth Circuit decision also served as a basis for the Ohio regulator to send cease-and-desist letters last week to 10 prediction-market companies, citing Kalshi’s case against Ohio among its references.

What this means for operators, platforms and suppliers

The separation between daily fantasy licences and permissions for sports betting is now operational and the absence of a clear federal solution forces operators to make local decisions. Companies with active state licences, like PrizePicks in its capacity as a DFS operator licensed by the Missouri Gaming Commission, prefer to protect those permissions and therefore remove products that could put them at odds with an aggressive interpretation of the legal framework.

For platforms that act as intermediaries of contracts (such as Performance Predictions II in PrizePicks’ case), rapid deactivation of offers in jurisdictions that threaten sanctions is a recurring tactic. Ongoing cases and appeals to the Supreme Court will determine whether that approach is temporary or requires permanent changes to business models.

What’s next

The issue of event contracts on sporting outcomes appears headed to the Supreme Court. Federal decisions resolving jurisdiction between states and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will directly impact how companies structure the sale of contracts inside apps and the need to obtain state licences or adapt age controls and taxation.

Renata Quiroga, Corresponsal de mercados de apuestas, covers the evolution of this conflict between operators, platforms and regulators in the United States. For further reading on regulatory frameworks, see related pieces in the regulation section and market news in news.