IGA's Rocha: "DraftKings Has to Come Down Like a Piñata" Once Kalshi Loses

The Indian Gaming Association chair told Gaming America that more tribal lawsuits are coming after the Ninth Circuit, that DraftKings' tribal partnerships in Connecticut, Arizona and Washington are at risk over its prediction-market push, and that the Supreme Court will rule against Kalshi. CNIGA's James Siva: "We're keeping track."

• "Once prediction markets lose sports betting, DraftKings has to come down like a piñata, and we'll be waiting with baseball bats. A lot of companies will lose big after we neuter Kalshi," Indian Gaming Association chair Victor Rocha told Gaming America in an interview published on Monday
• Rocha expects more tribal lawsuits against prediction markets after the Ninth Circuit's ruling for two California tribes, and says DraftKings' agreements with tribes in Connecticut, Arizona and Washington could be in jeopardy over its pursuit of prediction markets
• California Nations Indian Gaming Association chair James Siva said "everyone is aware of which online sports betting operators have moved into prediction markets and which ones haven't. We're keeping track of that," naming DraftKings as particularly aggressive and BetMGM as having stayed out
• Rocha predicts the Supreme Court will rule against Kalshi: "This will go all the way to SCOTUS, and they will lose. This Court despises bureaucratic overreach"; Gaming America notes states have prevailed in 37 of 43 preliminary-injunction rulings, per Daniel Wallach
• The interview appeared days after an IGA member tribe, Tunica-Biloxi, launched a prediction market on Kalshi

The Tribal Lobby Has Named the Operator It Intends to Punish

Victor Rocha, chair of the Indian Gaming Association and one of the most quoted tribal voices against prediction markets, has told Gaming America what he expects to happen when the litigation ends, and to whom. "DraftKings is f***ed," he said in an interview published on Monday. "Once prediction markets lose sports betting, DraftKings has to come down like a piñata, and we'll be waiting with baseball bats. A lot of companies will lose big after we neuter Kalshi."

The threat has a mechanism. DraftKings operates online and retail sports betting in several states through agreements with tribes, including Connecticut, Arizona and Washington, three states that have opposed prediction markets in court. Those agreements could be in jeopardy because of the company's continued pursuit of prediction markets, Rocha said. Ahead of the NFL season DraftKings ran a national campaign declaring its app live in all 50 states, and has targeted states without legal sports betting, including Texas and California, where it has spent years courting tribes for a sports betting framework. Any goodwill from that effort, Gaming America reports, appears to have been lost.

James Siva, chair of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association and a close ally of Rocha, put it more carefully. "Everyone is aware of which online sports betting operators have moved into prediction markets and which ones haven't," he said. "We're keeping track of that." DraftKings has been particularly aggressive, he said, while operators such as BetMGM have stayed out.

On the law, Rocha expects the run of state and tribal victories to continue. "Since the beginning, we've said that Kalshi's legal fiction of treating prediction markets as swaps violates state and tribal sovereignty. Court ruling after court ruling has agreed with us." The last 14 federal court rulings have gone against Kalshi, and states have prevailed in 37 of 43 rulings on preliminary injunctions, according to gaming lawyer Daniel Wallach's count cited by Gaming America. "This will go all the way to SCOTUS, and they will lose. This Court despises bureaucratic overreach," Rocha said. Gaming America also quoted lawyer Stephen Piepgrass on the other side of that bet: the Supreme Court "has shown a willingness to reverse decisions from the Ninth Circuit", and an exchange "would prefer to be appealing an adverse decision out of the Ninth Circuit to this Supreme Court, more than just about any other".

The interview landed in the same week as two developments that complicate the picture. New Jersey's petition to the Supreme Court, which Kalshi has asked for 30 more days to answer, comes from the circuit where Kalshi won; and one of the IGA's own member tribes, Tunica-Biloxi of Louisiana, launched a Kalshi-powered prediction market on Thursday, a decision CNIGA called "profoundly disappointing".

The Compact Is the Leverage, and It Is Real

In Connecticut, Arizona and Washington, a commercial sportsbook operates online only through a tribal partner whose compact gives it the gaming rights, and those partnerships are contracts with terms and renewal dates. A tribe that decides DraftKings is undermining the exclusivity the compact protects, by taking the same bets through a federally registered exchange, has both a grievance and a lever, and Rocha's point is that the lever is not the courtroom. BetMGM's decision to stay out of prediction markets, which Siva mentioned unprompted, is the comparison tribes will draw when the next market-access agreement is negotiated. That is a commercial consequence DraftKings priced when it went in, and the interview is notice that the bill will be presented.

Rocha Is Confident About the Supreme Court in a Way the Docket Does Not Yet Support

Thirty-seven of 43 is a record, and the Ninth Circuit's tribal ruling is the strongest of the wins. But the case the Supreme Court has been asked to hear first is New Jersey's, in which the Third Circuit sided with Kalshi, and the justices have a history with the Ninth Circuit that Piepgrass describes accurately. Rocha's prediction may be right, and the CFTC's aggressive posture under Selig gives the "bureaucratic overreach" framing something to attach to. It is still a prediction, and the tribes' litigation strategy, which depends on IGRA rather than the swaps question, would survive an adverse ruling on the Commodity Exchange Act better than the states' would.

The Piñata Line Is a Message to the Other Operators

The interview is aimed as much at FanDuel, Fanatics and BetMGM as at DraftKings. Siva's "we're keeping track" is a ledger, and the tribal lobby is telling every commercial operator with a tribal partnership that the ledger will be read at renewal. In a week when a Louisiana tribe chose Kalshi and the IGA's chair chose a baseball bat, the industry's tribal politics have stopped being a united front and started being a set of individual calculations, which is the outcome Kalshi's Tunica-Biloxi announcement was designed to produce.

Rocha has said what the tribes will do if they win. DraftKings has bet that they will not, and the answer is now with a court that has not yet said whether it will take the case.