Amelia Schafer
ICT
Tribal gaming industry leaders are demanding Congress reject the idea that online gaming, such as prediction markets, is a form of “investing or hedging” and call it what it is: gaming.
“This is, no exaggeration, the largest and fastest moving threat our industry has ever seen in its 30-plus years of existence,” said James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association and citizen of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, during a press conference.
Commodities Futures Tradition Commission Chairman Micheal Selig is testifying before the House Agriculture Committee Thursday morning.
Prediction markets, such as Kalshi, PolyMarket and PredictIt, allow users to bet on real world events such as sporting events, elections and pop culture moments from any device connected to the internet. Users can purchase a share and gain or lose money based on the actual outcome of the event they’ve selected to bet on. By clicking yes, prediction markets argue the user has entered into a “contract” rather than placed a bet, which industry leaders argue allows for it to be regulated differently than traditional gaming.
These platforms are not regulated the same way that tribes are. Prediction markets don’t sign gaming compacts with individual states. Instead, the mediums, which argue they deal in event contracts like the stock market, are regulated by the Commodities Future Tradition Commission not by state governments.
The commission argues it has exclusive federal power to regulate national prediction markets. However, through the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act federal exclusivity in regards to gambling is a right only tribes should be allowed.
Tribal gaming enterprises represent nearly half of the U.S. gaming industry, according to the American Gaming Association.
The tribal gaming industry generated a record $43.9 billion between the roughly 530 tribally operated casinos nationwide in 2024. It surpassed the National Football League’s annual revenue.
“Since the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988, tribal gaming has become an integral component of the United States gaming industry,” the association told ICT in 2022.
Several states have taken legislative action against online gambling platforms. Most recently, Wisconsin passed legislation allowing for its 11 federally recognized tribes to control servers operating prediction markets within the states borders, hoping to find a medium that allows for the growth of the services without threatening tribal sovereignty.
Thursday’s congressional hearing is the result of a federal judge’s barring of Arizona’s ability to enforce its state gambling laws against prediction markets. State prosecutors say prediction markets, specifically Kalshi, are operating illegal gambling services. The judge’s order argues Kalshi is operating within its rights as an “events contract” service, which the state can’t control.
Prediction markets completely bypass the framework established nearly four decades ago through the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, said David Bean, chairman of the Indian Gaming Association and a citizen of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, during the press conference. They not only challenge tribal sovereignty in regards to gaming exclusivity, but threaten state sovereignty in the case against Arizona.
“[Thursday], the house will hear from CFTC Chairman Selig, we expect him to continue to claim that federal law prevents tribes and states from enforcing our laws and regulations on prediction markets,” Bean said. “He will also claim that prediction markets are financial products and not sportsbooks. But no parent of a teenager with a Kalshi app will fall for this lie that it is investing or hedging.”
The National Indian Gaming Commission, a federal regulatory overseeing Indian gaming within the Department of the Interior, currently lacks a chairperson, something Siva argued has allowed for the continued unregulated spread and growth of prediction markets.
The NIGC chairperson is appointed by the sitting United States president and affirmed by the U.S. Senate. President Donald J. Trump has not appointed a candidate.
Trump was a vocal opponent of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, fearing that it would threaten Atlantic City, New Jersey’s booming historical gambling industry where he owned and operated several and several casinos.
At one point in 1993, Trump claimed that the act would pave the way for mass organized crime nationwide during his testimony before the House Committee on Natural Resources. During this testimony, he infamously stated, “They don’t look like Indians to me,” in reference to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation which operates the Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut
In the early 2000s, Trump pivoted and opted to embrace Indian gaming. In 2002, he partnered with the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians in California to manage its Spotlight 29 casino outside of Coachella. The partnership was short-lived, however, as the tribe purchased the full contract out from Trump for $6 million in 2004 following his string of corporate bankruptcies.
Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, joined Kalshi as its strategic advisor in January 2025.
“It’s not a coincidence that we do not have a new chair appointed at NIGC when we have one of the biggest misuses of regulation in the gaming world that we’ve seen recently,” Siva said. “So I’m not surprised at all [that there is a vacancy]. [I’m] disappointed 100 percent, but not surprised that these things are happening in conjunction with one another.”
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.