Kalshi is launching prediction apps with Native American tribes. That’s dividing Indian country

By Marshall Cohen, CNN

(CNN) — Eric Wright thinks Kalshi could change lives on his Indian reservation.

He’s the administrator for the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, a small Native American tribe in such an isolated area of northern California that it doesn’t have potable drinking water. But Wright hopes revenue from the tribe’s new Kalshi-backed prediction app will fund much-needed water projects.

The Kletsel Dehe is one of four tribes that launched prediction apps with Kalshi on Wednesday, becoming the latest to break ranks from most of Indian country, where opposition runs high because the industry could threaten casinos that provide an economic lifeline to hundreds of tribes.

“We aren’t a big gaming tribe that has a ton of economic dollars lying around,” Wright told CNN. “At its core, this is about tribal sovereignty and economic self-determination. Other tribes are entitled to disagree with our decision, but they don’t have veto power over our economic future.”

The explosive growth of prediction markets this year is driving a wedge between Native American communities across the country.

The four tribes partnering with Kalshi in California and Oklahoma add to a small but growing list of tribes embracing prediction markets. But hundreds of other tribes claim companies like Kalshi and Polymarket are illegally encroaching on their coveted gaming rights, and they’re pushing in court to ban sports prediction markets, which make up over 80% of the business.

Rebecca George, who runs the Washington Indian Gaming Association, is part of the broad coalition of tribes trying to rein in the prediction market industry. She’s one of nearly 20 people from all sides of the debate who spoke with CNN for this story.

She said casinos helped transform the “third-world conditions” she saw growing up on the Suquamish tribe’s Port Madison Indian Reservation, not far from Seattle. But she’s wary about what might happen to that revenue stream as prediction markets continue to grow.

“In Indian country, we’re still fighting for basic infrastructure,” George said. “Kalshi’s co-owners just became billionaires. And we know this is coming off of the backs of the tribes. So, it’s hard not to take personally.”

CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events, but CNN editorial employees aren’t permitted to use prediction platforms.

From bingo to $46 billion

As federal funding shrank in the 1970s, some tribes turned to bingo to raise money, sparking a legal showdown with states that restricted gambling.

A landmark Supreme Court case later opened the door for tribal gaming to expand, and Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, creating a federal framework for tribes to open casinos on their lands.

“It’s a bit ironic that the tribes are saying these new up-and-comers found a backdoor to gambling, when that’s basically how tribal gaming came about,” said Jonathan Cohen, an expert on US gambling history. “It only got legal approval after the fact, with bingo halls and card rooms in small casinos.”

Nearly 250 tribal governments now operate about 545 gaming facilities across 29 states, according to the federal agency that regulates the industry.

These casinos saw record profits in 2025, with gross revenues surpassing $46.2 billion. But there are some clear heavyweights in the sector – about 56% of that money came from the most powerful 9% of tribal facilities.

Tribal gaming was already economically rattled by the rapid expansion of sports-betting over the past decade. Leaders from a half-dozen tribal gaming associations told CNN they want to avoid further disruptions from prediction sites, where more than 80% of trading volume comes from sports.

Still, most of the fears from Indian country revolve around what might happen to those income streams as sports markets continue growing on prediction sites – as opposed to what’s already happening.

Tribal leaders who spoke to CNN didn’t provide data, when asked, showing revenue drops this year. But many believe there are only so many “gaming dollars” to go around, even though executives as sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel downplay concerns of cannibalization from prediction sites.

‘We need roads, we need water’

Glen Gobin remembers growing up in the 1950s, carrying buckets of water from a nearby pump to his grandparents’ house because they didn’t have indoor plumbing at the Tulalip Tribes reservation in Washington state.

He now sits on the tribal council and has seen the transformative impact of casino dollars, which funded 100% of a $67 million water pipeline and a $19 million early education center, according to records reviewed by CNN.

“First it was about creating jobs,” Gobin said of the first wave of tribal gaming in the 1990s. “Then it was, we need to build homes, we need to build infrastructure, we need roads, we need water, we need sewer plants.”

He was part of a group of tribal leaders that met last month with federal regulators in Washington, DC, lobbying for a ban on sports markets.

Also in the room was Robbie McGhee, vice chair of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the only federally recognized tribe in Alabama. He said about 85% of his budget comes from gaming, and federal funds only cover 20% of a $20 million health care budget for members and children of tribal descent.

“We have always done our best to play by the rules… we had to work with our state to come to an agreement for what gaming would look like,” McGhee said, drawing a contrast with prediction companies that sought approval from the federal government instead of the states.

He added, “We have built an economy for our governments.”

McGhee also eagerly pointed out that non-tribal casinos pay hefty state taxes that fund education and health care. Federally regulated prediction sites don’t pay state gaming taxes, and those companies are thriving: Kalshi is reportedly eyeing a $40 billion valuation, and Polymarket is at $20 billion.

Battles in and out of court

There are now dozens of cases involving tribes, non-Indian casinos and dozens of states – and most experts believe the Supreme Court will ultimately decide the legality of sports prediction markets.

Two California tribes won last month at a federal appeals court, which ruled that sports markets from Kalshi and Robinhood violate tribal gaming rights enshrined in federal law.

A Wisconsin federal judge, however, ruled in May that the Ho-Chunk Nation “produced little evidence” that its casinos were losing customers to Kalshi. The judge declined to shut down Kalshi within the tribe’s borders.

“It was reactionary at the start,” said James Meggesto, a seasoned tribal gaming attorney at Holland & Knight. “The gaming tribes were tuned in early on. But the last year has seen a real galvanization of the opposition, notwithstanding a handful of tribes that are dipping their toes into it.”

When Kalshi co-founder Tarek Mansour announced the first tribal prediction app last month with the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, he wrote that “the future doesn’t have to be organized around conflict.”

But the conflict heightened last week, with insults flying back and forth.

The New York Post recently reported about a failed attempt at collaboration in 2025 between Mansour and Victor Rocha, conference chair at the Indian Gaming Association. He’s a leading anti-prediction antagonist on social media who has boasted about “curb-stomping” Kalshi with “no mercy.”

Last month, Rocha derided a “coffee boy” that he said was sent by Kalshi to court potential new tribal partners at a professional conference in Las Vegas, and he encouraged tribes to sabotage the meetings. Kalshi’s top spokeswoman, Elisabeth Diana, then called Rocha a “scared bully.”

The tribes aligning with Kalshi don’t see it as a battle with opposing sides.

Michael Stopp is a Cherokee businessman whose company worked on the prediction app launched Wednesday by the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, in eastern Oklahoma. Prediction apps won’t “take from the pot” of tribal gaming, he said, because digital platforms can’t replace the experience of sitting at a slot machine or playing table games like blackjack.

“I didn’t want to just be the redface out there,” giving Kalshi a Native American partner they could “tokenize,” Stopp told CNN. “But we do our due diligence and really vet the companies we work with, and they’ve put together a very good program for these tribes. It is a legitimate opportunity.”

Marshall Pierite, chair of the Tunica-Biloxi tribe, said there was a “lukewarm” reception from Indian country when his first-ever tribal prediction market came out last month. But he said some tribal leaders privately asked him “how they can piggyback on our efforts” with Kalshi.

“We just love to challenge and change the status quo,” Pierite said.

The CFTC’s ‘one-man show’

With the Trump administration’s blessing, prediction markets are structured as financial exchanges for trading – not casinos or sportsbooks for gambling. This means they bypass state gaming regulations and instead get federally licensed to offer “event contracts” by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC.

CFTC chairman Mike Selig, a Trump appointee and staunch supporter of prediction markets, invited tribal leaders last month to his Washington, DC, offices for a meeting that attendees said was professional but unproductive.

One attendee, James Siva, chair of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, said “decades of work” on tribal gaming were “circumvented by a one-man show” at the CFTC. (The CFTC is supposed to have a bipartisan five-member board, but Selig has been the sole commissioner all year.)

Siva said tribal advocates told Selig there are more than 6,000 tribal gaming regulators across the country. Compare that to the CFTC, which had only 535 employees as of the latest tally in February. The CFTC polices not just prediction sites but also commodity futures and other financial instruments.

A senior CFTC official told CNN that agency leaders saw the meeting as “productive” and appreciated the strong tribal attendance. The official said as a result of the meeting, the CFTC assigned a staff member to add tribal engagement to their portfolio.

When asked to comment on the critiques from the tribal attendees, CFTC spokeswoman Brooke Nethercott told CNN that “Chairman Selig was happy to engage with tribal leaders and looks forward to continued engagement.”

CNN’s Akansha Singh contributed to this story

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