- CNIGA Chairman James Siva rejected a CFTC offer of tribal market access as a divide-and-conquer tactic that changes nothing.
- The rejection followed a Ninth Circuit ruling one day earlier that found sports-event contracts meet the definition of Class III gaming.
- Tribal leaders including Siva met CFTC officials Sept. 14 and afterward called on the agency to shut the contracts down.
- Siva said the dispute over prediction markets is likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The California Nations Indian Gaming Association rejected the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s prediction market relief for tribes Thursday, calling it a “divide-and-conquer” strategy and saying the contracts are illegal gambling whoever holds the license to sell them.
What CNIGA Rejected
“The CFTC appears to believe that if it offers Tribes a pathway into prediction markets, it can somehow resolve the fundamental legal problems these products present. It can’t,” CNIGA Chairman James Siva said in a statement released Thursday. “This announcement changes nothing about the core issue. Sports-event contracts remain illegal gambling, regardless of who offers them. Calling them financial products does not change their underlying nature or exempt them from longstanding federal, state, and Tribal laws governing lawful gaming.” He called the offer “nothing more than a divide-and-conquer strategy to try and weaken the legitimate concerns we have raised.”
The CFTC had not described the offer in any press release as of Thursday. Its lone Sept. 17 release, a staff no-action position for providers of passive trading software, does not mention tribes.
A Court Ruling, One Day Old
Siva pointed to the Kalshi ruling backing California tribes in the Ninth Circuit, handed down the day before, as proof that “these products can’t be rebranded as commodities to avoid established gaming laws.” He said the fight is “far from over” and predicted it will ultimately require “resolution by the Supreme Court.”
The Sept. 14 Meeting
The CFTC’s offer followed a closed-door meeting Sept. 14 in Washington between agency officials and tribal leaders that included two California participants, CNIGA and the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, alongside the Oneida Nation, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the Mohegan Tribe, the Tulalip Tribes, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, the Washington Indian Gaming Association and the United South and Eastern Tribes.
Siva said afterward that “prediction market companies are taking advantage of a negligent regulatory agency” and that the commission “has both the authority and the responsibility to shut these operations down.” Oneida Nation Vice Chairman Jameson Wilson said the agency had overlooked tribal feedback and appeared “dead set on delivering a corporate gambling dystopia.”
What’s Next
CNIGA has pressed the same argument in Congress, urging the Senate to amend the CLARITY Act to bar prediction markets from listing sports and casino-style event contracts. The dispute over gambling in California now runs on three fronts: a federal rulemaking, a district court that must decide whether to block Kalshi on two reservations under the Ninth Circuit’s revived injunction bid, and a Congress that has yet to act.