Novig's Emergency Injunction Filing Against New York

Novig asked a federal court for emergency relief against New York's gambling laws on August 6, one day after it began serving New York customers and sued the state over it. The court denied that emergency application on August 11.

We read the Southern District of New York docket on August 7. The company's own complaint says it "began offering these event contracts to customers located in New York today," and it was filed on August 5. The next day Novig moved for a preliminary injunction and asked the court to hear it on an emergency footing. New York is the only one of its four state suits where it has asked for anything urgent, which makes it the test case.

What has happened in the New York case so far?

Every date below comes from the docket in Ludlow Exchange, LLC v. James, No. 1:26-cv-06676 (S.D.N.Y.), which we have read on August 7, August 11 and August 12.

What did Novig file on August 6?

Five documents, all entered the same day. Docket entry 23 is a motion for a preliminary injunction. Entry 24 is the memorandum of law supporting it. Entry 25 is a declaration from Benjamin R. Walker, the Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer whose name is on every filing in the case, attaching one exhibit: the CFTC's June 16, 2026 designation of Ludlow Exchange. Entry 26 is a declaration from Torey Korsunsky, with no exhibits.

Entry 27 is the one that sets the pace: "PROPOSED ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE WITH EMERGENCY RELIEF." An order to show cause compresses the schedule. Rather than waiting out a normal briefing calendar, it asks the court to order the state to appear and explain why the injunction should not issue. The docket adds that it is "to be reviewed by Clerk's Office staff."

None of those five documents is publicly retrievable, so we are reporting the docket text rather than the arguments inside them. What Novig wants is on the record already. Its complaint runs 45 pages and asks the court to enjoin the defendants from enforcing against it "Article I, Section 9 of the New York Constitution; New York Penal Law §§ 225.00, 225.05, 225.10, 225.15, and 225.20; New York Penal Law § 80.10; Racing Law § 104; Racing Law §§ 1367 and 1367-a; New York Executive Law § 63(12), whatever predicate of illegality is invoked through it; 9 NYCRR §§ 5300 through 5330.45," and to declare all of it preempted by federal law. We covered that filing on August 5.

One date needs pinning down, because the docket carries two. The case record shows a filing date of August 4, 2026, while the complaint itself and every other opening document are stamped and entered August 5. We reported the August 4 case-opening date when the suit first appeared; August 5 is when the papers landed.

Nine officials are named, each in an official capacity: Attorney General Letitia James, Gaming Commission Executive Director Robert Williams, Chair Brian O'Dwyer, and Commissioners Peter J. Moschetti Jr., John A. Crotty, Sylvia B. Hamer, Martin J. Mack, Marissa Shorenstein and Jerry Skurnik.

New York has since answered the motion. CasinoBeats reported on August 10 that Attorney General James opposed it, telling the court Novig gave no advance warning of the application and "has not remotely satisfied the standard" for a restraining order issued before the state has argued its side. That response is not in the public record we can read, so it comes to us through that report rather than from a filing we have opened.

Which judge is hearing the Novig case?

Novig has asked for a particular one, and has not got her yet. On August 5 it filed a statement of relatedness "re: that this action be filed as related to 25-cv-08846," and the clerk's entry that day reads: "CASE REFERRED to Judge Analisa Torres as possibly related to 25cv8846."

Referred is not assigned, and the difference matters. The assignment notice entered the same day reads "The above-entitled action is assigned to Judge Unassigned," and the case was docketed as 1:26-cv-06676 with no judge's initials after the number, where Kalshi's carries hers: 1:25-cv-08846-AT. So Novig asked to be put in front of the judge who has already rejected this argument once.

It did not get her. A docket entry titled "Notice of Case Assignment/Reassignment" was entered on August 10, and CasinoBeats reported that day that the case sits with Judge Torres. That report was wrong, and so was this article for repeating it. The order entered the next day, which denied Novig's restraining order application, is signed by Judge Colleen McMahon and opens: "This case was assigned to me yesterday after Judge Torres declined to accept it as related to KalshiEX LLC v. Williams et al." Torres declined it because a shared legal question between different parties does not make two cases related under the local rules.

That case is KalshiEX LLC v. Williams, filed in the same court on October 26, 2025, against the same Gaming Commission officials, on the same preemption theory. Judge Torres has ruled against Kalshi twice, and the Second Circuit has so far declined to step in.

The July 7 opinion runs 22 pages and lands on the merits: "the Court finds that New York gambling laws as applied to Kalshi's sports-event contracts are not preempted by the CEA and Kalshi has not, therefore, made a clear or substantial showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits." Its conclusion is two sentences long. "Kalshi's motion for a preliminary injunction is DENIED. Kalshi's motion to seal is GRANTED."

Three weeks later she refused to revisit it, quoting the standard back: "the fact that a court previously found that a preliminary injunction was not warranted should carry significant weight, so the circumstances must be of unusual magnitude." Kalshi's argument that it faced "a 'Hobson's Choice' of violating New York law ... or violating the CFTC's order and risking its federal registration" did not clear that bar.

Then the Second Circuit. On July 29, Judge Myrna Pérez ordered that "to the extent Appellant seeks temporary administrative relief pending review by a three-Judge panel, the motion is DENIED. The motion is REFERRED to a three-Judge panel." That panel has not ruled.

Has Novig asked the other three states for emergency relief?

No. We checked all three dockets on August 7. Massachusetts, Washington and New Mexico have a complaint apiece and little else: a summons and a case-assignment notice in Massachusetts, a disclosure statement and a notice of related case in Washington, a bare docket in New Mexico. New York is where the company is spending its urgency. Our breakdown of the three parallel suits has what each complaint asks for.

Does this change anything for sweepstakes players today?

Nothing at all, and that is the honest answer for now. A motion is not a ruling, and this one is about Novig's event contracts, not about coin play.

It is also worth knowing what Novig's own filing says about its sweepstakes side in this state. The complaint describes Novig Cash as redeemable only after a playthrough requirement, identity verification, and "the eligibility rules set out in the Sweepstakes Rules, which do not currently permit full sweepstakes redemption for participants located in New York." That description is now historical: Novig's help centre, read on August 8, says both currencies are retired and remaining Novig Cash was converted to US dollars, as our report on the retirement sets out. That restriction is the operator's, and it sits on top of a state ban: sweepstakes-casino operation has been illegal in New York since December 5, 2025, under a statute whose liability language reaches marketing affiliates, which is why our New York page carries no operator links at all.

What is being decided is whether the exit door exists. Every state that has closed to dual-currency play closed by statute or by regulator, and the only argument anyone has advanced for reopening one without persuading a legislature is the preemption theory Novig is running. It failed in New York on July 7, in Utah on August 4 and in Michigan on August 6, and again in Connecticut on August 10. Novig filed its emergency papers on the day of the Michigan ruling.

If it works, a federally licensed exchange becomes a route back into banned states. If it fails in front of the judge who has already written the opinion, the route is closed for a while. Our guide to what the sweepstakes carve-out actually allows covers why the two models are not the same thing legally, and where the model stands in every state is where your own answer lives.

Our Legendz review covers the sweepstakes sportsbook closest to what Novig runs. It excludes New York and is not a party to any of this, as is true of every brand among the best sweepstakes casinos we have tested.

Sources & documents

• Federal docket, Ludlow Exchange, LLC v. James, No. 1:26-cv-06676 (S.D.N.Y.)
• Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, Ludlow Exchange, LLC d/b/a Novig v. James, entered August 5, 2026
• Federal docket, KalshiEX LLC v. Williams, No. 1:25-cv-08846 (S.D.N.Y.)
• Opinion and Order denying preliminary injunction, KalshiEX LLC v. Williams, July 7, 2026
• Order denying emergency injunction pending appeal, July 27, 2026
• Second Circuit order, KalshiEX LLC v. Williams, No. 26-1835, July 29, 2026
• Federal docket, Ludlow Exchange, LLC v. Campbell (D. Mass.)
• Federal docket, Ludlow Exchange, LLC v. Brown (W.D. Wash.)
• Federal docket, Ludlow Exchange, LLC d/b/a Novig v. Torrez (D.N.M.)
• CasinoBeats, Novig sues four states as a launch strategy, August 10, 2026 - the Attorney General's opposition and the assignment to Judge Torres

All four Novig dockets and the Kalshi docket were read on August 7, 2026. Quotations from the July 7, July 27 and July 29 orders are verbatim from those orders, which we downloaded and read in full; the July 27 and prayer-for-relief quotations are shortened at the marked ellipsis and nowhere else. The statute list, the page count, the New York launch date and the sweepstakes-redemption language come from the complaint, which we also read in full. Docket entry text is quoted as the docket records it. The August 6 filings themselves are not publicly retrievable: entries 23 through 27 are described here from the docket text, which states what was filed and by whom but not what it argues. We have not seen Novig's memorandum of law and do not characterise it. The docket was re-read on August 11 and again on August 12. The entries after August 7 are an August 10 notice of appearance, an August 10 notice of case assignment or reassignment, an August 11 "Notice to Court Regarding Proposed Order," and docket entry 38 on August 11. Entry 38 became retrievable on August 12: it is Judge McMahon's three-page order denying the TRO and setting the briefing schedule, which we downloaded and read in full, and it is the source for everything this piece now says about the judge, the denial and the schedule. It also disproves the assignment to Judge Torres that we had reported from CasinoBeats' August 10 report; that passage is corrected above. The Attorney General's opposition to the motion still reaches us through that same report rather than through a document we have opened, and is attributed that way in the text.

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