Has South Carolina's attorney general acted against prediction markets?

No. As of 1 September 2026 there is no cease-and-desist letter, no state lawsuit and no published attorney general opinion on prediction markets in South Carolina.

What is South Carolina Code section 32-1-10?

A gambling loss-recovery statute descended from the English Statute of Anne of 1710, which South Carolina adopted in 1712. It lets a person who loses fifty dollars or more and pays it over sue the winner to recover it, within three months, with costs. It is the basis of the private suits against prediction market operators in the state.

Is sports betting legal in South Carolina?

No. South Carolina has no legal sportsbook and no commercial casinos. The only legal gambling is the state education lottery plus charitable bingo and raffles. Sports betting bills have been introduced repeatedly and have not passed; a Senate subcommittee heard testimony on one in February 2026 without voting.

Does the Ninth Circuit ruling apply in South Carolina?

No. South Carolina is in the Fourth Circuit, so the 28 August 2026 Ninth Circuit decision is persuasive authority there rather than binding precedent. A prediction-market appeal is pending in the Fourth Circuit and has not been decided.

Is Kalshi legal in South Carolina?

Explainer · Updated September 1, 2026 · 18+ · Not legal advice · By BetG8 Editorial · Prediction Markets

Forty-nine states are running the same argument about prediction markets: a regulator or an attorney general on one side, a federally registered exchange on the other, and a federal court deciding who wins. South Carolina is running a different one. Here the plaintiff is a private company, the theory is not preemption, and the statute it is built on was adopted by the colony in 1712.

Short answer: Kalshi and Polymarket both work in South Carolina and there is no geofence. The attorney general has issued no cease-and-desist and filed no suit. The only litigation in the state comes from a private plaintiff using a gambling loss-recovery statute inherited from the English Statute of Anne, and those cases are currently stayed while the federal appellate courts sort out the preemption question elsewhere.

Status at a glance

Question	Answer
Is Kalshi available in South Carolina?	Yes. No geofence.
Is Polymarket available?	Yes.
State enforcement action	None. No letter, no suit, no opinion from the attorney general.
Private litigation	Yes — and it is the only kind. Two suits, both brought by a Delaware LLC.
Legal sportsbook in South Carolina	No. No casinos either.
Governing law	S.C. Const. art. XVII, § 7; S.C. Code §§ 16-19-10 and 32-1-10.
Federal circuit	Fourth Circuit. An appeal is pending; nothing decided.
Effect of the 28 August ruling	Persuasive only. The Ninth Circuit does not bind the Fourth.

The statute nobody else is using

In 1710 the English Parliament passed 9 Anne c. 14, known ever since as the Statute of Anne. Among other things it let the loser of a gambling debt sue the winner to get the money back. South Carolina adopted the English statute in 1712, and the loss-recovery provision has survived every recodification since. It is now S.C. Code section 32-1-10.

The text is worth quoting because its age is the point. Any person who loses fifty dollars or more at any sitting, by playing at cards, dice table or any other game whatsoever, or by betting on the sides or hands of such as do play, and who actually pays that money over, may within the next three months sue to recover it from the winner, with costs of suit, in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Read that against an event contract. There is a sitting. There is a sum paid over. There is a winner. The statute does not ask whether the counterparty is federally registered, whether the instrument is a swap, or whether the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over designated contract markets — concepts that postdate it by roughly three centuries. It asks who lost money and who took it.

That is why South Carolina is the outlier. Every state action logged on this site is a regulator arguing about federal preemption. A loss-recovery claim skips the argument. It does not need the state to have authority over Kalshi, because the defendant is not being regulated — it is being sued by the person on the other side of the trade.

Two lawsuits, and no attorney general

In June 2025 a Delaware entity called South Carolina Gambling Recovery LLC filed in Oconee County against Kalshi, Robinhood and other prediction market operators. The cases were removed to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, where they sit as Nos. 8:25-cv-12859 and 8:25-cv-12867. In May 2026 the plaintiff filed an unopposed motion to stay both, pending the outcome of the appellate cases running elsewhere in the country.

A second suit followed in February 2026, naming Polymarket, DraftKings Predictions and others, and alleging violations of South Carolina’s gambling prohibition. Kalshi is not a defendant in that one.

Notice what is missing from both. Attorney General Alan Wilson has not issued an opinion, has not sent a letter and has not filed anything. South Carolina has no gaming commission to send one, because South Carolina has almost nothing to regulate: no casinos, no sportsbook, no card rooms. The state lottery is run by its own commission and that is the extent of legal gambling in South Carolina, alongside charitable bingo and raffles.

South Carolina has nothing to protect

The usual explanation for why a state fights prediction markets is that it is defending a licensed market: fees, tax, and a set of operators who paid for exclusivity and expect the state to enforce it. South Carolina cannot make that argument, because South Carolina has no licensed market. Article XVII, section 7 of the state constitution bans lotteries other than the education lottery the voters carved out, and the criminal code reaches games of chance broadly enough that the state has never had commercial casinos at all.

Sports betting bills keep arriving and keep not passing. In February 2026 a Senate Labor, Commerce and Industry subcommittee took roughly two hours of testimony on one and adjourned without voting. As things stand a prediction market is the only place in South Carolina where a resident can take a position on a game, which puts the state in the same category as Alaska, Hawaii and Idaho — no legal sportsbook, no enforcement, and a federally registered exchange filling the space.

What the 28 August ruling does and does not do here

On 28 August 2026 the Ninth Circuit held 3-0 that Kalshi’s sports event contracts are not swaps and that Nevada may enforce its gaming laws against them. That ruling binds nine western states. South Carolina is in the Fourth Circuit, where a prediction-market appeal is pending and undecided, so the Ninth Circuit opinion arrives as persuasive authority and nothing more.

It still matters here, for a reason specific to the stay. The private plaintiff paused its own cases explicitly to wait for the appellate courts. Those courts have now started producing conflicting answers rather than a single one, and New Jersey’s petition to the Supreme Court in the Third Circuit case is due 3 September. A stay that was meant to last until the law settled may now run considerably longer than the plaintiff expected when it filed the motion in May.

There is also a wrinkle worth flagging. A loss-recovery claim under section 32-1-10 has a three-month limitation window running from the payment. Every month the stay holds, an additional tranche of losses ages out of the statute. Time works against this particular plaintiff in a way it does not work against a state regulator, whose authority does not expire.

What would have to happen next

Path	Who acts	How fast
Attorney general opinion	Alan Wilson’s office	Weeks, if requested by a legislator. This is how Arkansas started.
Cease-and-desist letter	Attorney general’s office	Days, once an opinion exists.
The private cases resume	South Carolina Gambling Recovery LLC	On the plaintiff’s motion, whenever it decides the appellate picture is clear enough.
Legislation	South Carolina General Assembly	Session reconvenes in January. Sports betting bills have failed repeatedly.
Federal resolution	Fourth Circuit, or the Supreme Court	New Jersey’s cert petition is due 3 September 2026.

FAQ

Is Kalshi legal in South Carolina?: Kalshi operates in South Carolina without a geofence and no state authority has said it may not. But South Carolina's constitution and criminal code prohibit gambling broadly, and a private plaintiff is litigating the question in federal court under the state's loss-recovery statute. Available is not the same as lawful, and nothing has been decided.
Has South Carolina's attorney general acted against prediction markets?: No. As of 1 September 2026 there is no cease-and-desist letter, no state lawsuit and no published attorney general opinion on prediction markets in South Carolina.
What is South Carolina Code section 32-1-10?: A gambling loss-recovery statute descended from the English Statute of Anne of 1710, which South Carolina adopted in 1712. It lets a person who loses fifty dollars or more and pays it over sue the winner to recover it, within three months, with costs. It is the basis of the private suits against prediction market operators in the state.
Is sports betting legal in South Carolina?: No. South Carolina has no legal sportsbook and no commercial casinos. The only legal gambling is the state education lottery plus charitable bingo and raffles. Sports betting bills have been introduced repeatedly and have not passed; a Senate subcommittee heard testimony on one in February 2026 without voting.
Does the Ninth Circuit ruling apply in South Carolina?: No. South Carolina is in the Fourth Circuit, so the 28 August 2026 Ninth Circuit decision is persuasive authority there rather than binding precedent. A prediction-market appeal is pending in the Fourth Circuit and has not been decided.