SAN DIEGO — Indian Gaming Association (IGA) Chairman David Bean Wednesday reiterated that tribes across America are united in defending their sovereignty against the threat of prediction markets.
“The Indian Gaming Association strongly opposes the failure of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC),” he said. “We want them to enforce their existing law in not allowing gambling contracts.”
Bean made that statement at a press conference on the show floor of the annual IGA conference. The overarching theme of the conference has been the preservation of sovereignty and the rights that tribes are afforded for Class III gaming via the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and state compacts.
Prediction markets “represent federal overreach, they trample sovereignty,” Bean said. “For many, gaming represents the only means to provide essential services. … The system did not come easily, it was built over decades, and we faced opposition … despite IGRA, which was designed to restrict us.”
Bean’s statement came two days after the IGA board of directors codified its ongoing actions against the CFTC when it approved a resolution in opposition to the agenda allowing and regulating sports event contracts.
“Our Board took decisive action to protect what generations before us fought to build,” Bean said via press release. “These so-called prediction markets are an attempt to bypass tribal authority and recast gambling as a financial product. We will not allow that. We will stand united to defend tribal sovereignty and the integrity of Indian gaming.”
Tribes raising money, won’t back down
Indian Country is digging in for a long fight. Earlier in the week, IGA leaders unveiled the “CFTC Litigation Fund,” and Wednesday when asked about it during the press conference, IGA Executive Director Jason Giles said, “The litigation fund will be as big as it needs to be to last for years and also to put this back in the box.”
Tribes have repeatedly shown they will dig deeply into their pocketbooks to defend sovereignty. Leading into the 2022 elections, California tribes spent nearly $250 million to kill a legal sports betting initiative brought by commercial operators. Fighting the CFTC and prediction markets will be a longer process, and so far, Indian Country is involved via two tribal lawsuits against Kalshi and through the Tribal Amici filing amicus briefs in multiple cases between states and Kalshi in federal court.
“Indian Country has to collect its resources, and we do have commercial funding and will begin to look to our state partners to marshal our resources,” Giles said. “How that will be used, we’ll have to see.” Indian Country has been lobbying alongside the American Gaming Association in regard to prediction markets, and has partnered with states to defend sovereignty and preserve both entities’ legal right to gaming.
Giles said tribal leaders in a closed meeting directed IGA leadership to continue to fight, and asked for a playbook as individual tribes ramp up their own actions. He said there is “value” in tribes bringing lawsuits, and that there is a “big gap” between federal law and enforcement. Both the Commodities Exchange Act (CEA) and the CFTC have laws and regulations on the book banning financial contracts that involve gambling.
Giles also pointed to the possibility that prediction markets violate other federal statutes, including the Wire Act and the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, so “it’s left to the states and tribes to do it.” The more lawsuits, the more pressure, he said, and also suggested that Indian Country could consider taking the fight to tribal courts, and should engage with attorneys general in states where they are taking action.
Bean said prediction markets are “skirting the law” and “trying to rebrand” gaming.
Giles: ‘They should be sued everywhere’
While pure prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket have regularly come up during the conference, it is not lost on tribal leaders that state-licensed sportsbooks DraftKings, Fanatics Sportsbook, and FanDuel are also offering prediction products. And those companies also have tribal partnerships in some markets.
The companies, said Giles, “who have contracts with tribes and are now offering prediction markets, those should be revisited, their licenses should be as risk, and they will be.”
While Bean formally announced IGA’s position and promised Indian Country would continue to fight, Giles turned Kalshi’s mantra that it’s available everywhere on its head.
“If they are going to say ‘bet everywhere,’ they should be sued everywhere,” he said.
