Novig Took Its New York Loss to the Second Circuit the Same Day, Where Kalshi's Emergency Bid Already Failed

Novig appealed its New York ruling to the Second Circuit on the same day it lost, November 10, 2026. Lawyers for Ludlow Exchange, LLC, which does business as Novig, filed a short Notice of Interlocutory Appeal, Document 74 in Ludlow Exchange, LLC v. James, 1:26-cv-06676 in the Southern District of New York, appealing "from the Opinion and Order of the district court, entered on November 10, 2026 (ECF No. 73), denying Novig's motion for a preliminary injunction."

The docket shows the next step two days later. On November 12, 2026, the Clerk's office entered "Transmission of Notice of Appeal and Docket Sheet to USCA" and "Appeal Record Sent to USCA - Electronic File," the entries that hand the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. The appeal is New York's news because the exchange is headquartered in New York, the defendants are New York's Attorney General and the members of its State Gaming Commission, and the order on appeal is the one that left the state free to apply its own gambling laws to an exchange that offers sports contracts to people in New York.

What Novig is appealing

The order under appeal is narrow, and the appeal is narrower than the case. Judge Colleen McMahon's 35-page opinion concluded that Novig "has failed to establish a likelihood of success on the merits" of its claim that federal commodities law preempts New York's gambling and sports-wagering laws, and on that ground alone rejected the motion "without reaching the other equitable requirements for a preliminary injunction." She directed the Clerk to terminate the motion at Docket 23. The rest of the lawsuit remains in the district court.

What Novig asks the appeals court to review is that refusal. The opinion records that Novig received its designation as a contract market from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on June 16, 2026, that it had held an Internet Sports Betting Operator license in Colorado in 2023 before returning it, and that the contracts at issue are "listed, traded, and settled" on Novig's own exchange. Those facts were the background to McMahon's holding that Novig's sports contracts are not swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, which she reached at the preliminary-injunction stage, a holding the November 10 report on the ruling walks through in full.

Why Novig could appeal at once

Most rulings in a federal case cannot be appealed until the case ends. An order refusing an injunction is one of the exceptions written into the statute. Under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), the courts of appeals "shall have jurisdiction of appeals from" interlocutory orders of the district courts "granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions." The notice Novig filed invokes that route by its title: it is a notice of interlocutory appeal, taken from an order that refused an injunction, while the rest of the lawsuit stays where it is.

The notice is signed by Benjamin R. Walker of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, with three colleagues from the firm's New York office and one from its Washington office whose pro hac vice admission was listed as forthcoming. It is dated November 10, 2026, the same date as the opinion it appeals.

What the notice does not ask for

A notice of appeal starts the appeal; it does not stop anything. The notice asks for no injunction while the appeal is pending, and the district docket through its November 12, 2026 entries shows no separate motion for one. The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure set the order of operations for that kind of request: under Rule 8(a)(1), a party "must ordinarily move first in the district court" for "an order suspending, modifying, restoring, or granting an injunction while an appeal is pending," and may go to the court of appeals only after showing that moving first in the district court would be impracticable or that the district court denied the request.

The practical position in New York is therefore the one the November 10 order left. No court order bars the Attorney General or the Gaming Commission from applying the state's gambling and sports-wagering laws to Novig, and the appeal, by itself, does not change that.

The court Novig is walking into

The Second Circuit has already ruled once on an emergency request in the same dispute. On November 3, 2026, a motions panel of Judges John M. Walker Jr., Dennis Jacobs and Joseph F. Bianco denied requests for injunctions pending appeal in three appeals "being considered in tandem": KalshiEX LLC v. Williams, No. 26-1835, Kalshi's case against New York's Gaming Commission; and two Connecticut cases, No. 26-2239, brought by Kalshi, and No. 26-2297, brought by Coinbase Financial Markets, Inc. The order said only that the appellants "have failed to make the required showing that an injunction pending appeal is warranted," citing Agudath Israel of America v. Cuomo, and it was the subject of the earlier report on the Second Circuit's one-sentence order.

McMahon's opinion describes that order as "a non-precedential summary order" in cases that "raise essentially the same issues as this case," which New York brought to her attention in a notice of supplemental authority, Docket 72. The opinion adds that "the Second Circuit has indicated that a merits panel will take up the issue; no date has yet been set for oral argument." Novig's appeal now arrives at a court with a merits panel still to decide the question the Kalshi appeals present.

The Kalshi appeal has grown since November 3. Kalshi moved on November 5, 2026 to file an oversized brief. On November 6, amicus briefs were filed by the North American Gaming Regulators Association and the International Association of Gaming Regulators; by Better Markets, Inc.; by Ohio, Nevada and 35 other states with the District of Columbia and the Northern Mariana Islands; by Gary Gensler; and by the American Gaming Association. On November 9, the Indian Gaming Association and the National Congress of American Indians filed one more, and amicus counsel appeared for several tribal nations. The docket's newest entries, through November 9, 2026, set no argument date.

Where the other New York exchange cases stand

The other exchange cases against New York's officials in the district court are still waiting on rulings, according to their dockets as of November 12, 2026.

In the suit brought by North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc., which does business as OG, before Judge Lorna G. Schofield, the docket shows a minute entry titled "Motion Hearing" on October 20 and a notice filed on November 4, with no order deciding OG's injunction motion (the OG hearing on New York's gambling law). In the suit the United States and the CFTC brought against the State of New York, 1:26-cv-03404, also before Judge Schofield, the newest entries are the state's two letters of October 23 answering the federal government's notices about the CFTC's interim final rule and proposed rule, and a notice filed on November 4; no ruling on the federal government's injunction motion appears.

The Polymarket US matters sit before Judge Ronnie Abrams. In James v. QCX LLC, 1:26-cv-08338, the Attorney General's petition against the company that does business as Polymarket US, which QCX removed to federal court, a memorandum of law opposing the state's motion to remand was filed on November 5, and the schedule set on October 20 makes the state's reply due on November 16. In QCX's own suit against the same officials, 1:26-cv-08345, the newest entry is an order on a motion to file excess pages, dated November 4.

What happens next

The Second Circuit's next step is to open its own docket for Novig's appeal; as of November 12, 2026, the district docket shows the record sent and no appeals court case number posted. Any request by Novig for an injunction while the appeal is pending would start, under Rule 8, in Judge McMahon's courtroom. The next date set across New York's exchange cases is Monday, November 16, 2026, when the state's reply is due on its motion to send the Polymarket US petition back to state court. Each filing is listed with its date on the New York legal status page.