Tribal gaming leaders are pressing senators to amend the CLARITY Act to prohibit sports and casino-style gambling through prediction markets, taking their campaign directly to Capitol Hill as lawmakers negotiate the crypto market-structure bill’s final shape.
The Indian Gaming Association (IGA) said in a news release that tribal leaders are meeting with senators and congressional staff Tuesday and Wednesday during its Summer Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C. The group is also seeking language affirming that CLARITY would not preempt the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) or other tribal, state and federal gaming laws.
“Indian Country is united because this is one of the greatest threats tribal government gaming has faced in a generation,” IGA Chairman David Bean said in the release.
The lobbying push comes as Senate negotiators work to combine separate market-structure measures advanced by the Banking and Agriculture committees. Although supporters are pushing for action before the August recess, the CLARITY Act still faces unresolved disputes and an uncertain path to the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
Tribes seek two changes to CLARITY
The first requested change would prohibit federally regulated platforms from offering contracts tied to sports or casino-style outcomes. Sports event contracts have been the main source of conflict with state regulators and tribal gaming interests, which argue that the products amount to unlicensed sports wagering.
“By relying on the fiction that sports bets are ‘swaps,’ the prediction markets undermine tribal sovereignty, violate the government-to-government agreements tribes have built with their states, and threaten the revenues our tribal nations depend on to fund healthcare, education, housing, public safety, language preservation, and essential government services,” Bean said.
The second provision would make clear that the CLARITY Act does not override existing tribal, state or federal gaming laws, including IGRA. The bill does not expressly say that it preempts IGRA, but tribes want Congress to eliminate any potential ambiguity before it becomes law.
“We are reinforcing more than a year of education with Congress,” Bean said. “Some senators support our position, some remain undecided, and others simply need more information. Our responsibility is to continue showing Congress that prediction markets are not simply financial products. They are gambling that directly threatens tribal governments and the future of Indian gaming. We will continue delivering that message until Congress acts.”
The tribal position is broader than the state-law objections raised in many prediction market disputes. Speaking during a recent Sports Education and Innovation Conference panel in Las Vegas, Danielle Finn, director of UNLV’s Indian Nations Gaming and Governance Program, said states generally argue that prediction markets violate their gambling laws, while tribes focus on “federal Indian gaming legislation, tribal-state compacts and sovereignty protections,” according to Casino.com.
The IGA press release did not identify the supportive senators, provide proposed amendment language or name a lawmaker prepared to introduce it.
Why tribes are targeting a crypto bill
The CLARITY Act is not a gaming bill. It is intended to establish a federal regulatory framework for digital assets and divide oversight responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
IGA’s concern is that cryptocurrency-based prediction markets could use that expanded federal framework to strengthen arguments that they may offer gambling-like products nationwide without complying with tribal or state gaming laws.
The association said that without its proposed protections, CLARITY “could unintentionally allow cryptocurrency-based prediction markets to expand online gambling nationwide.”
The legislative push comes as tribes pursue parallel challenges to sports event contracts in federal court. Three California tribes recently asked the Ninth Circuit to block Kalshi from offering the contracts on their lands, arguing that federal commodities oversight does not displace IGRA or tribal authority over gaming. Judges appeared skeptical of Kalshi’s position during oral arguments, repeatedly questioning why its sports contracts should be treated differently from conventional sportsbook wagers. Similar tribal challenges are also pending in Wisconsin and New Mexico.
Months-long campaign reaches new stage
IGA’s effort to use cryptocurrency market-structure legislation as a vehicle for restricting prediction markets dates at least to January, when it joined the American Gaming Association in urging Congress to address sports event contracts through the pending legislation.
The groups called the legislation an “important, bipartisan opportunity to prevent sports betting and casino gambling under the guise of ‘event contracts.’” Although the letter did not use the CLARITY Act’s name, it targeted the same crypto market-structure legislative effort now moving through the Senate.
The campaign expanded in February, when IGA brought together tribal leaders, the National Congress of American Indians, commercial gaming groups and consumer advocates for a congressional briefing. The coalition again urged lawmakers to place prediction market restrictions in pending crypto legislation, while also announcing a task force to coordinate legislative, regulatory and legal responses.
CLARITY enters a critical stretch
One of the largest remaining disputes involves ethics restrictions for elected officials with crypto interests. Other unresolved issues include legal protections for decentralized-finance developers and limits on stablecoin rewards. CoinDesk reported Wednesday that President Donald Trump, White House advisers and senators are expected to meet Thursday in an attempt to resolve the ethics dispute, although the White House had not publicly confirmed the meeting. Several Democrats have indicated that they will not support final passage without an ethics provision.
The unresolved negotiations are adding pressure to act before senators leave Washington for their summer state-work period, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 10. Lawmakers and crypto advocates have been targeting late July or early August for Senate consideration, with the approaching midterm elections likely to make bipartisan action more difficult afterward.
Traders on Kalshi appear optimistic that the Senate will at least take up the bill. A market on whether the chamber will hold a recorded vote on the CLARITY Act before Aug. 8 placed the probability at about 75% Wednesday. The contract also resolves Yes if the Senate votes to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, so it does not require passage of the bill. The market opened July 10 and remains lightly traded, with less than $4,000 in volume.
House supporters are also trying to maintain momentum. The House Financial Services Committee’s digital assets subcommittee will hold a field hearing Friday at Federal Hall in New York titled “Building the Future of Finance: How the CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation.” The House has already passed its version, so the event will not advance the bill procedurally, but will give crypto and financial-industry representatives a platform to promote it while Senate negotiations continue.
The convergence of Senate negotiations, White House involvement and renewed House promotion gives IGA what may be its best opportunity to press for changes before lawmakers decide on the bill’s final language.
