The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana plans to have a prediction-market online gambling business via a deal with the controversial Kalshi.
Through a tribal-owned application powered by Kalshi, the Tribe would offer potentially harmful products to its members and people elsewhere.
The announcement comes as other Native American tribes are fighting the New York-based Kalshi in federal court.
The Tribe announced Friday that its newly created SaltTrade Derivatives will operate what it described as the first prediction market app owned by a Tribal nation. Through Kalshi’s infrastructure, customers will access so-called “event contracts” and gamble on outcomes involving sports and other real-world events.
Revenue Sharing
The Tribe and Kalshi will split revenue from the partnership. They didn’t disclose details on the revenue sharing.
“This partnership represents exactly the type of opportunity Indian Country should be pursuing, where Tribes are owners, innovators and leaders, not just participants,” Tunica-Biloxi Chairman Marshall Pierite said.
In reality, prediction-market online gambling isn’t innovative.
The Tribe, which operates the Paragon Casino Resort, said the venture is intended to diversify its economy.
Other Tribes Are Fighting Kalshi
The announcement came just two days after a federal appeals court handed Kalshi a significant defeat involving tribal gaming rights.
On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit ordered that Kalshi be blocked from offering sports gambling on the lands of California’s Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians. The unanimous panel found the tribes were likely to show that Kalshi’s contracts violated the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
The court described each Kalshi event contract at issue as an act of placing a “bet or wager.”
Also this week, representatives from 17 tribes met with the CFTC over concerns that prediction markets may undermine tribal sovereignty.
A Betrayal?
The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana is going against the grain.
“The debate can no longer be reduced to prediction markets on one side and Tribes on the other,” Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour claimed in a statement.
SaltTrade Derivatives will rely on conditional CFTC no-action relief rather than registering with the agency. The CFTC on Thursday expanded such relief to qualifying providers of passive trading software.
Neither Kalshi nor the Tribe announced when the app will launch.
Image of Paragon Casino Resort via Facebook
