DraftKings, Polymarket SC Suit Moves to Federal Court

A Charleston lawsuit that uses a South Carolina statute from 1712 to chase gambling losses from DraftKings, Polymarket, the CME and six trading firms moved to federal court on September 2, 2026. The man bringing it says in his own complaint that he has never bet on sports and lost nothing.

The case is Hughes v. DraftKings Inc., now No. 2:26-cv-03838 in the District of South Carolina before District Judge Richard Mark Gergel. James M. Hughes filed it in the Charleston County Court of Common Pleas on July 29 as case 2026-CP-10-04063. The July filing was reported at the time. The removal was not, and it is the part that decides whether the case survives at all.

We pulled the docket and the filings on September 5, 2026. Nothing has been decided, every claim below is an allegation from a complaint no court has tested, and no defendant has answered it.

What law is the South Carolina prediction-market lawsuit built on?

Two sections of the state code that have been on the books since the Province of Carolina split in two. South Carolina's General Assembly still publishes both, and the complaint quotes them in full.

Section 32-1-10 lets a person who loses "the sum or value of fifty dollars" at "any other game whatsoever" sue the winner to get it back, if they do it "within three months then next ensuing". That is the player's own remedy, and it is the one a South Carolina reader should write down.

Section 32-1-20 is the one Hughes actually invokes. If the loser does not sue inside those three months, it becomes "lawful for any other person" to sue instead, "and treble the value thereof", with the money split down the middle: "the one moiety thereof to the use of the person that will sue for the same and the other moiety to the use of the county in which the offense shall have been committed."

Several trade reports in August described the case as a section 32-1-10 claim. It is not. The complaint's opening line brings it "under the Statute of Anne, S.C. Code Ann. § 32-1-20", and the prayer asks the court to declare the defendants liable under that section and to order an accounting under section 32-1-30. The distinction matters, because 32-1-10 belongs to people who lost money and 32-1-20 belongs to everyone else.

Who is being sued?

Sixteen named companies plus John Does 1 through 10, sorted by the complaint into four groups by what each one does in a wager.

Two of those names are already out. The removal papers include "Notices of Voluntary Dismissal as to DRW Holdings and IMC-Chicago", filed before the case left state court.

DraftKings' first substantive filing in federal court is a set of Local Rule 26.01 answers dated September 2. It confirms that both GUS III and Railbird are wholly owned by DraftKings, and it says the company "do[es] not believe that any claim in the complaint should be tried to a jury" - Hughes demanded one. DraftKings is defended by Duffy & Young in Charleston with Gibson Dunn behind it.

Why does a sweepstakes player in South Carolina care?

Because section 32-1-10 does not mention sports, and because South Carolina is a state every operator serves. All 33 brands in our database accept South Carolina players, and the state has no sweepstakes-specific ban - which is exactly why an old, general gambling statute is the interesting document.

This is not a new mechanism to us. It is the mechanism. The Kentucky class-action wave runs on KRS 372.040, the two Minnesota class actions against VGW run on a 1905 loss-recovery law, the Mississippi case that restarted last week runs on section 87-1-5, and the Modo.us arbitration fight started as an Illinois Loss Recovery Act claim. None of those needed a legislature to pass anything. Neither does this one.

Does the standing problem that killed the Kentucky case apply here?

That is the live question, and the answer is genuinely not obvious.

Hughes pleads his lack of injury as a feature. Paragraph 26 says he "has suffered no direct or indirect injury traceable to the Defendants' conduct - he has personally experienced no gambling losses on account of the Defendants and, indeed, has never even bet on sports. His standing to sue derives exclusively from S.C. Code Ann. § 32-1-20." He is not seeking to represent a class.

In a state court that is fine. In federal court, Article III requires an injury, and on August 18 the Eastern District of Kentucky threw out a third-party loss-recovery claim for exactly that reason after the defendants removed it. We covered that dismissal in detail. The judge there distinguished a District of Columbia statute on one specific ground: D.C. sends half of any treble recovery to the District, "which is what a real qui tam statute looks like", while Kentucky lets the claimant "pocket all their winnings".

South Carolina sends half to the county. On the line that Kentucky court drew, section 32-1-20 sits on the D.C. side of it. Whether that is enough is for Judge Gergel, and we are not predicting an outcome - but it is why the September 2 removal is the event, not the July filing.

What should a South Carolina player do about it?

Nothing that involves signing anything. There is no class here, no claim form and no fund. Anyone who contacts you asking for a fee to join a South Carolina gambling recovery action is not describing this case.

The part that is yours is section 32-1-10 and its three-month clock, which runs from when you paid the money over rather than from when you heard about it. If you think you have a claim, that is a question for a South Carolina lawyer, not for us. Our guide to whether sweepstakes casinos are legal sets out how these old statutes sit alongside the newer bans, and how we verify operator documents explains what we can and cannot check from outside a company.

One correction to our own site follows. Our South Carolina page calls the state "one of the more straightforward 'yes' answers on our list" and rests that on the absence of a sweepstakes ban. That remains true about bans. It does not mention sections 32-1-10 and 32-1-20, and a state with a live private right of action over gambling losses is not the same thing as a state with nothing on the books. The page needs that paragraph, and we have flagged it rather than rewriting a ranked commercial page from a news desk.

Sources & documents

• Hughes v. DraftKings Inc., No. 2:26-cv-03838 (D.S.C.) - full federal docket, read September 5, 2026
• State-court complaint, Exhibit 1 to the notice of removal (57 pages) - the source for the defendant groups, paragraph 26 and the section 32-1-20 claim
• DraftKings, GUS III and Railbird responses to Local Rule 26.01 interrogatories, entry 3 - ownership, the jury position and the removal basis
• South Carolina Code of Laws, Title 32 Chapter 1 - the published text of sections 32-1-10, 32-1-20 and 32-1-30
• Casino.org report on the July filing, August 3, 2026 - independent confirmation of the section 32-1-20 claim and plaintiff's counsel
• CourtListener docket search, District of South Carolina - one matching case, checked September 5, 2026

21+. This is news reporting, not legal advice. Every claim described above is an allegation that no court has tested. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER. Responsible gaming resources.