Courts, Congress and Statehouses: Tribal Gaming's Post-Midterm Strategy
The election is behind them and the Supreme Court's decision is ahead. Tribal leaders are working three channels at once, and each moves on its own clock.
The midterm elections are over, and the tribal gaming industry's campaign against sports-oriented prediction markets now enters a different phase. Leaders of the Indian Gaming Association described the stakes in a Nevada public radio segment on November 3, and their account, together with the litigation calendar, points to a strategy running on three fronts at once: the federal courts, Congress, and the states. Each front has its own timetable, its own allies, and its own risks.
Front one: the courts
The courts have so far been the most active venue. According to the KNPR segment, the Sixth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals have ruled for the states, while the Third Circuit sided with Kalshi in April. That conflict is the reason the Supreme Court has been asked to intervene. Tribal interests are well represented: 145 tribes and tribal organizations filed an amicus brief supporting New Jersey's petition, as covered in our report on the tribal filing in Flaherty v. KalshiEX. Kalshi's response to the petition is due November 9.
The strength of the judicial front is that it addresses the core legal question directly: whether a contract listed on a federally regulated exchange can be a sports bet that escapes state and tribal gaming law. Its weakness is timing and uncertainty. The justices have not agreed to hear the case, and even if they do, a ruling would be months away. In the meantime, tribal operators carry the competitive pressure the platforms create.
Front two: Congress
The second front is legislative. Jason Giles, the Indian Gaming Association's executive director, said in the KNPR segment that tribes began visiting Washington in large numbers at the start of summer to meet lawmakers and attorneys general. The most concrete legislative signal reported in that segment is that Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, plans to introduce a bill after the midterms that would give states the authority to allow or ban prediction markets. We analyzed the proposal in our piece on the Cruz bill and state-tribal approval.
A bill of that kind would be attractive to tribal leaders if it preserved tribal authority alongside state authority. The open question is drafting. A measure that returns decisions to states but is silent on tribes could leave tribal governments dependent on state choices in places where they have no compact exclusivity to protect. Tribal advocates will likely press for language that acknowledges IGRA's framework explicitly. The legislative calendar also matters: a newly introduced bill in a new Congress faces a long path, and a divided political environment makes passage far from assured.
Holly Cook Macarro, a tribal policy consultant and citizen of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, told the program that prediction market companies are spending heavily on political action committees and independent expenditures. Whatever one thinks of that spending, it is a reminder that tribes are contesting this issue against well-funded commercial interests, and that the legislative front is not only a matter of legal merits. Industry advocates counter, as they have in court, that a single federal framework for exchange-traded contracts is more coherent than state-by-state regulation.
Front three: the states
The third front is the most fragmented. KNPR reported that Nevada, Michigan and Washington are moving to ban prediction-market sports wagering, and that a coalition of attorneys general has joined the fight against it. Our own coverage tracks specific actions, including Michigan's halt order. State action benefits tribes where it removes unlicensed competition from markets that tribes serve under exclusive compacts, as in Washington. But it also shows the limits of a state-led approach: tribes in states without such action must rely on courts or Congress.
States are not perfect allies. They have their own revenue interests, and their positions on tribal exclusivity can diverge from tribal priorities in other contexts. The shared opposition to prediction markets is real, but it is an alignment of interests rather than a permanent coalition. Tribal leaders appear to understand that, which is one reason they are pursuing the other two fronts in parallel.
The complication within Indian Country
The strategy is complicated by the fact that tribes are not unanimous. KNPR reported that four tribes have agreed to work with Kalshi, and IGA Chairman David Z. Bean argued that such arrangements come at the cost of tribal sovereignty. Those partnerships, which we examined in our analysis of the divide, give platforms a talking point that some tribes support their model, and they give partnering tribes a revenue stream. Whether they weaken the collective argument depends on how courts and legislators treat them.
Bean also called the offerings "illegal unregulated online sports betting" and said the platforms target young people and lack responsible gambling programs. That consumer-protection theme resonates beyond the gaming industry, since sportsbooks must verify age under state rules while, according to the segment, prediction platforms operate with little or no age verification. The segment also cited research and press figures on the platforms' growth: Polymarket reached roughly $1 billion in revenue as of June according to the research firm Sacra, and monthly trading volume grew from about $5 billion to roughly $24 billion in April according to The Block. Those figures are third-party estimates and should be read as such.
What to watch
Three markers will show which front is gaining ground: the Supreme Court's handling of the petition after Kalshi's November 9 response, the text of any Cruz bill and whether it names tribes, and the next round of state bans or court rulings. The Indian Gaming Association's role in coordinating tribal positions will be tested as these threads develop. For now, the post-midterm landscape is less a single campaign than three overlapping ones, and tribal gaming's leverage will depend on whether they converge.