Kalshi has found a tribal partner just as tribal gaming law becomes one of its biggest legal problems.
The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana announced it is launching what it calls the first Tribal nation prediction markets app through SaltTrade Derivatives, a division of a Tribal-owned enterprise. The tribe acknowledges the decision will be divisive amongst tribal nations across the U.S.
“Our decision will generate discussion and debate,” Tunica-Biloxi Chairman and CEO Marshall Pierite said in an announcement. “Some Tribal nations and state governments have raised concerns about prediction markets, particularly contracts involving sporting events and whether certain products cross the line into gaming. Those questions are being contested in courts and regulatory proceedings. We respect those concerns, and we respect the sovereign right of every Tribal nation to reach its own conclusion.”
The app will use Kalshi’s infrastructure and give participants access to event contracts traded through Kalshi’s marketplace.
The announcement is striking because it comes two days after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Kalshi’s sports event contracts likely constitute unauthorized Class III gaming when users place them from the lands of two California tribes.
The partnership gives Kalshi a powerful counterargument to the industry’s growing tribal criticism: Prediction markets are not necessarily Tribes versus exchanges. In Louisiana, at least one tribe is becoming an owner and operator in the category.
“Indian Country should have more paths to economic self-determination, not fewer and we’re proud to partner with the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe as the first tribal nation to enter prediction markets,” Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said in a release. “The debate can no longer be reduced to prediction markets on one side and Tribes on the other. What’s clear is that regulated national infrastructure and Tribal entrepreneurship can develop together — and one does not have to lose for the other to win.”
A tribe enters prediction markets
The Tunica-Biloxi’s product is intended to let users trade contracts tied to objectively verifiable future outcomes. Kalshi’s announcement frames the venture as a broader effort toward Tribal economic self-determination, revenue diversification and technology ownership, not merely a betting partnership.
The name SaltTrade references the Tunica-Biloxi people’s history as salt traders. Pierite said the project represents a model “where Tribes are owners, innovators and leaders, not just participants.”
This is not Kalshi simply advertising through a casino operator or licensing its brand to a Tribal entity. The release describes a distinct Tribal-owned trading application that will use Kalshi’s exchange infrastructure.
Louisiana is not California
The partnership’s political and regulatory backdrop differs sharply from California’s.
Louisiana permits legal sports betting, including mobile wagering, and the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe has long operated gambling enterprises. That means the Tribe is joining prediction markets in a state that already treats regulated sports gambling as a legal product category.
California does not permit commercial sports betting. Its tribal gaming system gives tribes significant authority over Class III gaming on tribal lands, which includes sports betting. In the California case, Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria argued that Kalshi was offering sports contracts on their lands without Tribal authorization.
The Ninth Circuit agreed that the tribes were likely to succeed under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or IGRA. It held that Kalshi sports contracts are likely Class III gaming and that a transaction can be located on Indian lands when the user enters it from tribal territory. It also noted that Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulation does not displace IGRA.
The broader tribal coalition against prediction market sports contracts is substantial. The Indian Gaming Association, National Congress of American Indians, gaming associations from multiple states, the San Manuel Gaming and Hospitality Authority, and 15 federally recognized tribes supported the California tribes as amici.
The Ho-Chunk Nation has separately sued Kalshi and Robinhood in Wisconsin, arguing that sports-event contracts offered on tribal lands amount to unauthorized Class III gaming under IGRA.
And on Friday, the powerful Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama said it opposes sports prediction markets, arguing that the products threaten tribal and state sovereignty and that the CFTC has failed to enforce its own protections against gaming-related contracts.
Another front in the regulatory war
The Kalshi-Tunica-Biloxi deal also lands in the middle of the broader national legal fight over sports event contracts.
Kalshi maintains that it operates a federally regulated derivatives exchange and that its products are event contracts, not state-regulated gambling. Nearly 20 states have moved to challenge or restrict Kalshi and similar platforms, arguing that the companies offer sports betting without state licenses and bypass gambling taxes, responsible gaming rules, and integrity requirements.
The federal courts are divided.
The Third Circuit has given Kalshi preliminary protection from New Jersey’s gambling enforcement, accepting that its sports contracts could qualify as swaps subject to the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit has taken the opposite approach in Nevada, holding that Kalshi’s sports contracts are likely not swaps and allowing state gaming enforcement to proceed.
New Jersey has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the Third-Ninth Circuit conflict.
