Polymarket, Coplan Pull Private NY Suit Into Federal Court

Polymarket's US operating companies, its founder and chief executive Shayne Coplan and a second named individual pulled a private New York lawsuit into federal court on September 29, 2026 under 9 U.S.C. section 205, a Federal Arbitration Act provision that lets a defendant move a state case at any point before trial, with none of the 30-day clock ordinary removal runs on. Section 205 applies when the dispute relates to an arbitration agreement covered by an international treaty. This is not the Attorney General's case: it is a separate suit that had already reached an answer, discovery demands and an order to show cause in state court, and what it alleges is not public, because every document is behind PACER's paywall.

The case is now Hernandez v. Adventure One QSS, Inc. d/b/a Polymarket.com, No. 1:26-cv-08501, in the Southern District of New York. It came out of the Supreme Court, County of New York, where the docket entry gives the state index number as 160431/2026.

Six defendants filed the removal together, according to the docket text: Shayne Coplan, Adventure One QSS, Inc. d/b/a Polymarket.com, Matthew Modabber Sobhandost a/k/a Matthew Modabber, Blockratize, Inc. d/b/a Polymarket, John Does 1-10 and ABC Corp. 1-10. Coplan founded Polymarket in 2020 and runs it, and he is named here personally rather than only through the companies. The Southern District's own public filing feed timestamps the notice of removal at 15:06:45 GMT on September 29, and the three entries that followed it at 15:24:34, 15:37:35 and 15:41:49 the same day, which is a second, independent confirmation that the filings exist.

How is this different from New York's case against Polymarket?

Keep the two apart. New York's Attorney General sued Polymarket US five days earlier and that case was removed too, as 1:26-cv-08338 - we covered New York's petition to shut Polymarket US down, and its removal on September 24. Different plaintiff, different statute, different federal case number. Hernandez is a private suit, and the state is not a party to it.

What is 9 U.S.C. section 205?

Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act, the chapter that implements the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The federal docket codes the cause of action as 09:205, which it spells out as "Removal from State Court: Enforcement of Foreign Arbital Awards" - the misspelling is the court system's own - and the nature of suit as "896 Other Statutes: Arbitration".

Section 205 is short and unusually generous to a defendant. Where "the subject matter of an action or proceeding pending in a State court relates to an arbitration agreement or award falling under the Convention", it says, "the defendant or the defendants may, at any time before the trial thereof, remove such action or proceeding to the district court of the United States". It then adds that "the ground for removal provided in this section need not appear on the face of the complaint but may be shown in the petition for removal."

Two things in that text do the work.

The first is timing. Ordinary federal removal runs on a 30-day clock from service. Section 205 has no clock at all beyond the start of trial, which is why a case that has already reached answers, discovery demands and an order to show cause in state court can still be moved. The second is that the reason for removal does not have to be visible in what the plaintiff filed. It can be supplied entirely by the defendant's own papers - and the removal here attaches the platform's Terms of Use as its eighth exhibit.

Could section 205 be used against a sweepstakes player?

Mostly no, and the limit is written into the same chapter.

This is the part to be precise about, because the phrase that matters is "falling under the Convention". Section 202 says an agreement "arising out of such a relationship which is entirely between citizens of the United States shall be deemed not to fall under the Convention unless that relationship involves property located abroad, envisages performance or enforcement abroad, or has some other reasonable relation with one or more foreign states." A US player arbitrating with a US-incorporated sweepstakes operator under a US-law clause is the ordinary case, and on that text it is outside the Convention and outside section 205.

Where it stops being ordinary is worth knowing, because a large share of this category is not US-owned. Several sweepstakes operators are run from Malta, Cyprus, Curacao or Australia and write their terms accordingly. A foreign counterparty or a clause pointing at enforcement abroad is exactly the "reasonable relation with one or more foreign states" section 202 describes. We have not tested any specific operator's clause against that standard and we are not saying any of them meets it. The point is that whether your dispute can be moved this way turns on who you contracted with and where, not on how far the case has already gone.

We are describing the docket's own classification of the case, not a document we have read. The notice of removal is behind PACER's paywall and no copy has reached the free federal archive, so we cannot tell you what argument it makes or why the removing parties say the Convention reaches this dispute.

What was already on the state-court file before removal?

More than a new case would have. The notice of removal lists eight exhibits, and the labels are the only description of the state proceeding available for free.

An answer and an order to show cause mean the state case was contested and moving, not freshly served. That is the shape section 205 is built for.

The two corporate disclosure statements filed the same day are the one place the docket says something about structure rather than procedure. Blockratize, Inc. d/b/a Polymarket identifies six other affiliates - QCX LLC, QC Tech LLC, A2 QSS LLC, QCL Quad Code USA Corporation, QC Clearing LLC and Coming Home GBA LLC. Adventure One QSS, Inc. names ACTA QSS Inc. as its corporate parent.

Why does this matter to a sweepstakes player?

Not because section 205 is coming for your account, but because of what it shows about when an arbitration clause stops being dormant.

Almost every sweepstakes casino's terms carry an arbitration clause, and the clause is what decides whether a dispute over a blocked redemption or a closed account is heard by a judge at all. The clause sits unread until the moment you have a complaint, and by then it is generally too late to change it. We set out how those clauses work, and the 30-day opt-out window most of them contain, in our guide to how sweepstakes casinos work, and the terms-change problem that sits underneath them in our report on operators rewriting terms without notice.

The one thing here you can act on is the opt-out, and it is only available early. Most sweepstakes operators give you about thirty days from registration to opt out of arbitration by rejecting the clause in writing, and the clock runs from the day you signed up rather than from the day something goes wrong. If you have an account you opened this month, that window is open now and will not reopen.

The counterweight arrived on September 14, when a federal judge in Massachusetts refused to send a player of Modo.us into arbitration and held the operator's Terms of Use never formed a contract at all, because the operator had reserved the right to rewrite them at will. That decision is in our read of the Modo.us illusory-terms ruling, and the operator has appealed it to the First Circuit. An arbitration clause is only as strong as the agreement around it.

Nothing here changes a single term on any sweepstakes site, and Polymarket is not a sweepstakes casino - it is a prediction market, a category we track because it is fighting the same preemption battles state by state, and because cities have started borrowing the sweepstakes playbook for it: Baltimore sued Kalshi and Polymarket in August under the ordinance it had already aimed at six sweepstakes operators. New York is a banned state on our matrix: sweepstakes casinos do not offer Sweeps Coins play there at all, which is why a New York dispute of this kind arrives from a prediction market rather than a casino. We have also covered Polymarket's own preemption suit against the New York AG and Gaming Commission, and the DC class action alleging staged winning bets. For the sweepstakes category, the comparison that matters is how operators treat disputes, which the scorecards behind our ranked list of the best sweepstakes casinos weigh directly.

Sources & documents

• Hernandez v. Adventure One QSS, Inc. d/b/a Polymarket.com, No. 1:26-cv-08501 (S.D.N.Y.) - the September 29, 2026 filing date, the four entries, the state index number 160431/2026, the removing parties, the eight exhibit labels, the two corporate disclosure statements, the "09:205" cause code and the "896 Other Statutes: Arbitration" nature of suit, read September 29, 2026
• Southern District of New York public filing feed - independently timestamps the notice of removal at 15:06:45 GMT and the three later entries at 15:24:34, 15:37:35 and 15:41:49 GMT on September 29, 2026
• 9 U.S.C. section 205, United States Code 2023 edition - the removal text quoted above, including "at any time before the trial thereof", the requirement that the agreement be one "falling under the Convention", and the provision that the ground "need not appear on the face of the complaint"
• 9 U.S.C. section 202, United States Code 2023 edition - the sentence deeming an agreement "entirely between citizens of the United States" outside the Convention absent property abroad, performance or enforcement abroad, or another reasonable relation with a foreign state
• Caption search for "Polymarket" in the free federal docket archive - returns this case and no other opened since September 15, 2026
• RECAP storage probe for the notice of removal - HTTP 404, which is how we confirmed no free copy of the document exists

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