New Delhi, July 31 -- MINNEAPOLIS - Four days before Minnesota's felony ban on prediction markets was due to take effect, a federal judge stepped in.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez granted a preliminary injunction Monday blocking Minnesota from enforcing a law that would have criminalized operating platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket inside the state, making anyone who ran them liable for up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines. The ruling, reported by NBC News, came in a 44-page order issued after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Justice Department, and both prediction market companies sued Minnesota the day after Governor Tim Walz signed the legislation in May.

The decision lands at a moment of layered le...