Four Tribes in California and Oklahoma Launch Prediction Apps on Kalshi's Rails

Less than three weeks after the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe went first, four more tribal nations have launched Kalshi-backed prediction apps, CNN reports, one of them in northern California, inside the circuit that has just called Kalshi's sports contracts Class III gaming on tribal land. Only two of the four have been named, and the commercial terms have not been disclosed.

• Four Native American tribes in California and Oklahoma launched prediction apps with Kalshi on Wednesday 7 October, according to CNN, following the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, which became the first in September
• Two of the four have been identified, the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation in northern California and the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town in eastern Oklahoma; the other two, the apps' names, where they can be used and the revenue terms have not been disclosed
• In Kalshi's model, as chief executive Tarek Mansour described it for Tunica-Biloxi, the tribal enterprise runs the app, the brand and the customers, while Kalshi supplies matching, clearing, custody and surveillance and earns transaction fees
• Kletsel Dehe administrator Eric Wright told CNN he hopes app revenue will pay for water projects on a reservation without potable drinking water, and that other tribes "don't have veto power over our economic future"
• The launches come three weeks after the Ninth Circuit held that Kalshi's sports contracts are Class III gaming under IGRA on two California tribes' lands, and as tribal gaming associations press the CFTC to ban sports markets

Four More Tribes Take the Tunica-Biloxi Route Into Prediction Markets

Four Native American tribes in California and Oklahoma launched prediction-market apps with Kalshi on Wednesday, 7 October, according to CNN. CNN named two of them: the Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, a small tribe in an isolated part of northern California, and the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town in eastern Oklahoma. The other two tribes, the names of the apps, the states in which they can be used and the commercial terms were not disclosed, and Kalshi had published no announcement of the launches on its news site at the time of writing. CNN notes that it has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data in its coverage.

The launches follow the template Kalshi set out on 18 September, when the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe launched SaltTrade Derivatives, a tribal-owned enterprise. In a post on Kalshi's news site, Mansour wrote that SaltTrade "operates the mobile app and manages its branding, marketing, and customer experience", while Kalshi "runs the federally regulated exchange underneath: matching, clearing, custody, and surveillance", earning transaction fees rather than profiting from customer losses. CNN does not say whether the new apps' terms match SaltTrade's. Tunica-Biloxi said at its launch that it would not register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), relying on a staff no-action letter for passive software providers.

Wright, the Kletsel Dehe administrator, told CNN he hopes the app's revenue will fund water projects on a reservation that has no potable drinking water. "We aren't a big gaming tribe that has a ton of economic dollars lying around," he said. "Other tribes are entitled to disagree with our decision, but they don't have veto power over our economic future." He did not say how much the tribe expects to earn. Michael Stopp, a Cherokee businessman whose company worked on the Alabama-Quassarte app, told CNN that prediction apps would not "take from the pot" of tribal gaming and called Kalshi's programme "a legitimate opportunity". Tunica-Biloxi chairman Marshall Pierite said his launch met a "lukewarm" reception, but that some tribal leaders had privately asked "how they can piggyback on our efforts".

Opposition Has Hardened Since September

Most of tribal gaming remains opposed. Leaders from tribal gaming associations told CNN they want to avoid further disruption from prediction platforms, where more than 80% of trading volume comes from sports. Robbie McGhee, vice chair of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, said about 85% of his tribe's budget comes from gaming. Tribal leaders met CFTC chairman Mike Selig last month to argue for a ban on sports markets; James Siva, chair of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association (CNIGA), told CNN that "decades of work" had been "circumvented by a one-man show" at the agency. CNN also reports that tribal leaders, when asked, did not provide data showing revenue falls this year.

On 16 September the Ninth Circuit found the Blue Lake Rancheria and the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians likely to succeed in their claim that Kalshi's sports contracts are Class III gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) on their lands. A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled in May that the Ho-Chunk Nation had "produced little evidence" its casinos were losing customers to Kalshi, CNN notes. In Minnesota, tribal nations joined the state's defence of a law making it a felony to host or advertise prediction markets, which Judge Katherine Menendez blocked on 27 July, MPR News reported. Meanwhile Victor Rocha, conference chair of the Indian Gaming Association, who vowed last month that tribes would "neuter Kalshi", has mocked Kalshi's outreach to tribes, and a Kalshi spokeswoman has called him a "scared bully", according to CNN.

Kalshi Is Recruiting From the Bottom of the Revenue Table

Mansour's September post made the argument in numbers: according to the National Indian Gaming Commission, less than 9% of tribal gaming operations account for more than half of Indian gaming revenue. Wright's account of his tribe fits that profile, while the loudest opponents speak for tribes whose casinos fund most of their budgets. The pitch is a real one: IGRA rewards geography, and a mobile app does not depend on it. But Kalshi's partners carry the least weight in the organisations it is fighting, and with no revenue terms disclosed there is no way yet to judge whether the apps will fund a water system or mainly lend the exchange a sovereign voice in Washington.

A California Tribe Has Signed Up Inside the Ninth Circuit

The Ninth Circuit held that Kalshi's sports contracts, entered from tribal land, are Class III gaming that the plaintiff tribes' ordinances did not authorise; IGRA permits Class III gaming on Indian lands only under a tribal ordinance and a tribal-state compact. A California tribe distributing the same exchange's contracts under its own brand tests that reasoning from the other side. Whether the Kletsel Dehe app offers sports contracts, and to customers where, has not been disclosed. If it takes trades from users across the state, it competes for the same customers as the compacted tribes that sued, under federal commodities law rather than IGRA. That was CNIGA's objection to Tunica-Biloxi. It now applies inside California.

The Politics Have Moved Faster Than the Evidence

Tribal gaming produced a record $46.2 billion in gross gaming revenue in fiscal 2025, a figure cited by both CNN and Kalshi, and neither side has yet proved what prediction markets are doing to it. A handful of tribal apps will not settle that, since a small tribe's app revenue says nothing about a large tribe's casino floor. What they change is the framing: the opposition can no longer describe the dispute as tribes against exchanges, and a CFTC that met tribal leaders last month now hears from tribes on both sides.

Kalshi now has at least five tribal partners and a sovereignty argument to take to Washington. It does not yet have evidence that the apps pay, or a court ruling that the product they sell is not gaming.