Indian Gaming Association Chairman David Z. Bean has welcomed a recent Ninth Circuit decision involving Kalshi, describing the ruling as support for concerns tribal gaming organizations have raised about sports-related prediction markets for nearly two years.

In commentary published after the September 16 decision, Bean focused on what the case means for tribal sovereignty and the regulatory authority tribes exercise over gaming on their lands. The IGA has consistently argued that sports event contracts offered by prediction market platforms amount to gambling and remain subject to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act when conducted in Indian Country.

The Ninth Circuit ruled 3-0 that Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians qualified for a preliminary injunction in their case against Kalshi. The judges found that the tribes were likely to succeed on claims that the company’s sports contracts violated IGRA and tribal gaming ordinances.

Bean highlighted the court’s classification of those products:

“[T]he challenged sports event contracts constitute ‘class III gaming activities [under IGRA]….Our conclusion is reinforced by the Department of the Interior’s compact review, which defines gaming activity as ‘the conduct of class III gaming involving the three required elements of chance, consideration, and prize or reward.’”

For the IGA, that conclusion reinforces its position that describing sports wagers as financial event contracts does not place them outside tribal gaming law.

Bean Focuses on Tribal Control of Gaming

A central part of Bean’s response concerns where a prediction market transaction takes place when a customer uses the platform from tribal territory.

The court stated that “Kalshi’s products are also ‘located on Indian lands’ when a user enters into the event contract from tribal territory,” a finding the IGA views as important to the tribes’ authority under IGRA.

The decision also rejected an argument that tribal gaming compacts and procedures bind only their signatories and therefore cannot support action against an outside operator.

The secretarial procedures involved in the case require gaming on the tribes’ lands to remain tribally owned and comply with tribal gaming ordinances. Those ordinances prohibit gaming that the tribes have not authorized. Kalshi does not have that authorization.

Bean presented those requirements as part of the regulatory structure that tribal governments have developed to protect gaming conducted within their jurisdictions.

The IGA has repeatedly rejected the idea that the financial-market presentation of prediction contracts changes the underlying nature of sports wagering. According to Indian Gaming, Bean has previously called prediction markets “unlawful gambling dressed up as finance” and “no innovation.” The association has also described the products as “illegal, unregulated wagering activities.”

The Ninth Circuit expressed a similar conclusion about Kalshi’s sports contracts:

“Kalshi may reshuffle the cards, but it cannot change the hand: Its sports event contracts are Class III gaming.”

IGA Points to Broader Stakes for Indian Gaming

Bean also placed the decision within the longer development of tribal gaming in the United States.

According to the IGA, tribal nations spent decades establishing regulated gaming businesses that now fund tribal governmental services and support more than 680,000 jobs for American families. The association argues that allowing sports prediction platforms to operate outside those established requirements could divert gambling activity away from tribal operations.

“Every dollar diverted to gaming-like prediction markets is a dollar pulled away from tribal jobs, facilities, and community programs,” the association has stated.

The IGA has also criticized the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over its approach to prediction markets, accusing the regulator of enabling “illegal prediction market betting nationwide.”

Legal Challenge Remains Ongoing

Bean acknowledged that the latest ruling does not end the wider legal dispute involving prediction markets.

The September 16 decision concerns preliminary relief and reflects the court’s assessment of the tribes’ likelihood of succeeding on their claims. The underlying litigation can therefore continue.

The IGA participated in the appeal as amicus curiae alongside the National Congress of American Indians and the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, as well as other tribal organizations and federally recognized tribal governments.

Bean also credited the tribes that pursued the litigation. Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch carried the appeal forward, while Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians joined the original action.

Outside the case, the association has supported federal action addressing sports event contracts. It backed an amendment from Representative Gabe Vasquez that would prohibit prediction market platforms from offering contracts tied to sports gambling and has announced plans to raise funds for litigation against the CFTC.

Bean’s response therefore treats the Ninth Circuit decision as part of a wider effort to preserve tribal authority over gaming conducted on Indian lands. While further litigation remains possible, the IGA views the ruling as validation of its argument that sports prediction contracts fall within established gambling law when they operate as wagers on sporting events.