The Indian Gaming Association (IGA) hosted a congressional briefing last week with the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., to confront what tribal leaders described as “the most significant threat to Indian gaming” since the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) in 1988.
The briefing brought together IGA, the National Congress of Indian Affairs Task Force, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) President Mark Macarro, his NCAI team members, and tribal leadership, state and national gaming associations, and consumer protection experts to address the rapid proliferation of sports event contracts regulated at the federal level by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
“Sports event contracts being offered through prediction markets are the biggest threat to Indian gaming since IGRA was introduced,” said IGA Chairman David Bean. “They are not innovative financial tools. They are illegal sports betting products being routed through futures exchanges to avoid gaming law. That is a direct attack on tribal sovereignty.”
IGA and its partners are urging senators to include clarifying language in pending crypto marketplace legislation to affirm that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) does not authorize sports wagering through derivatives markets. As part of the advocacy effort, members of Congress were asked to sign a bipartisan letter to the CFTC addressing Chair Selig’s recent statements and calling for stronger oversight.
The message shared with members of Congress was clear, Bean said: sports event contracts are being listed on futures and derivatives markets originally designed to help farmers manage crop risk. Tribal leaders and industry representatives said that these markets were never intended to function as nationwide sportsbooks.
“These products are for sports betting. They walk like sports betting,” Bean said. “They pay out like sports betting. The only difference is that they are being dressed up as financial swaps to evade regulation.”
Panelists explained that, unlike with tribal and state-regulated online sportsbooks, there is no geofencing, allowing these platforms to bypass a tribe’s sovereign authority to determine who does business on its lands.
In addition, there are no meaningful consumer protections, leaving customers without guarantees that their wagers are secure; no uniform age-verification requirements, often relying on self-reported information; and no revenue sharing with states or tribes, stripping potentially millions of dollars from public budgets, tribal leaders said.
Bean cited a recent controversy following the Super Bowl, in which the CFTC was flooded with complaints about disputed wagers involving arbitrary outcome determinations. These incidents underscore the absence of regulatory clarity and consumer safeguards that are standard in tribal gaming operations, he noted.
The Tribal Leader Panel, moderated by IGA Executive Director Jason Giles, featured Chief Kirk Francis of the Penobscot Nation and Councilwoman Hermenia Frias of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. They emphasized that gaming revenues fund healthcare, housing, education, and public safety services in their communities.
“Prediction markets provide no benefit to tribal communities,” Bean said. “They extract value without consent, without compacting, and without accountability.”
The Gaming Association Panel included Bean, Phil Brodeen of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association, Rebecca George of the Washington Indian Gaming Association, and Alex Costello of the American Gaming Association. The panel presented a unified front across the tribal and commercial gaming sectors, Bean said.
“The entire gaming industry, commercial and tribal, is united,” Bean said. “Tribal nations are unified with States to stop this illegal betting market. We are asking Congress to step in before irreversible damage is done to state and tribal budgets and our citizens’ livelihoods.”
Tribal leaders raised concerns during the congressional meetings about the CFTC’s current posture. The agency has publicly stated that it does not believe these sports event contracts are illegal under the CEA. Additionally, recent comments by CFTC Chair Michael Selig suggest a more direct agency role in ongoing legal battles surrounding prediction markets, according to Bean, who warned that administrative action cannot replace Congressional authority.
“Congress established the framework for gaming in this country. If federal regulators reinterpret commodities law to authorize nationwide sports betting, that undermines Congress, undermines states and tribes, and undermines the rule of law,” Bean said.
“Tribal gaming is the most regulated form of gaming in the United States. We built this industry responsibly under IGRA,” Bean said. “We negotiated compacts. We follow strict regulatory standards. We share revenue. What we are seeing now is an attempt to bypass all of that. Indian Country will not allow illegal gambling to erode decades of hard work and sovereignty.”
