State sports market restrictions can set separate exit deadlines

Your sports market has disappeared from the app, but that alone does not tell you what happens to an existing position. Ohio's latest restrictions concern access to new sports contracts, while separate Michigan documents show why traders must also check for a deadline to close positions.

The useful question this week is practical: what exactly has your provider stopped allowing? A restriction on opening a trade and a requirement to close an old one deserve separate lines in your notes. Treating them as the same event can leave you planning around an exit that the notice never promised.

What changed in Ohio this week?

On 6 November 2026, Corey Sharp reported for Legal Sports Report that the Ohio Casino Control Commission said Robinhood, Gemini and Moomoo Financial no longer offered new sports event contracts in Ohio. Coinbase had agreed to stop offering them from 13 November 2026. That last date is a scheduled change as of this post's publication on 12 November 2026, not a completed shutdown.

Sharp reported that 5 of the 10 recipients of Ohio's orders had complied or agreed to comply, including Plus500US. His report also said Polymarket and Underdog were suing the commission. Those are different responses to an enforcement dispute, not evidence that every app has the same availability or timetable.

For a trader, the immediate lesson is to identify the provider and the product in the notice. Do not turn a report about new sports contracts at named companies into a claim that every prediction market in Ohio has closed. Nor should a lawsuit be read as a promise that a particular account can keep trading.

Does a block on new trades close my existing position?

Not enough information. A statement that you cannot open new positions does not, by itself, specify the treatment of positions you already hold. Look for separate wording about voluntary sales, mandatory closure, expiry and settlement before deciding what the restriction means for you.

Robinhood's quarterly filing published on 28 October 2026 supplies a narrower, primary-source account of its Ohio agreement. Robinhood said it agreed on 26 October 2026 to stop offering new sports-related event contracts in Ohio by 2 November 2026. In return, the commission agreed to refrain from enforcing its state gaming laws during the specified appeals.

That passage describes an agreement about new offerings and enforcement while litigation continues. It does not give an Ohio customer a closing price, a refund promise or a universal deadline for existing positions. Do not fill those gaps with terms borrowed from another state's agreement.

What does a separate closure deadline look like?

Michigan provides a concrete comparison. In a release dated 28 October 2026, the Michigan Gaming Control Board said Polymarket US had agreed to stop offering new sports-related event contracts to Michigan customers. The release also specified that remaining open customer positions would be closed by the end of the day Eastern time on 25 November 2026.

The release said this applied to positions customers had not closed voluntarily by that deadline. It described an agreement under which the state would refrain from enforcement while the company complied, and said the company's appeal remained pending. The announced deadline is still in the future on 12 November 2026.

This is why the second sentence of an access notice can matter more than the headline. A future event's outcome and a provider's deadline for closing your exposure are separate items. Before planning to hold until the result, check whether the notice actually permits that plan.

Can the same state have different deadlines?

Yes, the documents here give different dates for different providers. A Michigan court order dated 4 September 2026 required Robinhood to stop offering new sports-related event contracts by the end of the day Eastern time on 9 September 2026. It separately required closure of remaining open sports-related contracts by the end of the day Eastern time on 9 October 2026.

The order described those remaining positions as ones customers had not already closed voluntarily. It also preserved the parties' rights, obligations and defenses. An operational agreement to stop offering contracts should therefore not be presented as a company's admission that the state's legal position is correct.

The comparison is limited but useful. Michigan's Robinhood order and its later Polymarket US announcement do not supply interchangeable instructions. Read the document for your provider rather than copying a deadline from a screenshot about a competitor.

What should you check before placing another trade?

Start with the scope: provider, state and contract category. Then separate permission to open a position from the treatment of an existing one. Finally, write down any deadline with its time zone and the notice's publication date, so an older announcement does not quietly become your current instruction.

For an open position, ask the provider how voluntary closure works and how any mandatory closure would be priced. Ask what happens if you take no action, and where the applicable terms are written. These are questions to resolve before trading, not assumptions to make from the word “restricted.”

Keep the access notice alongside the contract's outcome rules. Our guide to prediction market resolution covers the question of who decides the result. An access restriction adds a different question: whether your position can remain open until that decision.

Does this settle whether prediction markets are legal?

The cited agreements do not support that broad conclusion. Robinhood's Ohio disclosure describes restraint from enforcement during appeals, and Michigan's Polymarket US release describes an appeal that remained pending. Those descriptions support a dated account of access restrictions, not a final nationwide legal verdict.

For the wider dispute, see our explanation of the prediction market court split. For an actual trade, a general legal argument is less useful than the current notice governing that provider and account. A favorable forecast cannot answer an access question, and market odds cannot tell you which deadline applies.

Keep the forecast separate from the access decision

Before choosing an outcome, establish what you can open, what you can close and whether an existing position has a separate deadline. If the notice leaves one of those points unclear, get the missing term from the provider. The documents above show why a single word such as “ban” is too blunt for managing a position.

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