Background
Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians sued Kalshi and Robinhood over sports-event contracts available to users on the tribes’ lands. The contracts allow users to pay for a position on a sporting event and receive a payout if the selected outcome occurs. The tribes alleged that the contracts were functionally sports bets and constituted unauthorized class III gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
The tribes sought a preliminary injunction under IGRA and also challenged Kalshi’s advertisement stating that sports betting was legal in all 50 states on its platform. The district court denied relief, reasoning in part that Kalshi was not bound by the tribes’ gaming arrangements, the transactions did not occur on Indian lands, and federal commodities and internet-gambling law governed the contracts. The court also treated the advertisement as a nonactionable opinion about legality.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit held that the tribes were likely to succeed on their IGRA claim. Kalshi’s sports-event contracts qualified as class III gaming because they functioned as sports wagers, regardless of how Kalshi labeled them. The gaming activity was located on Indian lands when users entered the contracts from tribal territory, even though Kalshi’s headquarters and infrastructure were elsewhere.
The court further held that the contracts likely violated the tribes’ secretarial procedures and incorporated gaming ordinances, which permit class III gaming only when tribally authorized and conducted through the tribal regulatory structure. Neither the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act nor the Commodity Exchange Act displaced IGRA’s application to gaming on Indian lands. The court reversed the denial of preliminary relief on the IGRA claim and remanded for the district court to consider the remaining preliminary-injunction factors.
The panel affirmed the denial of relief on the Lanham Act claim. Because the legality of Kalshi’s products remained unsettled, its statement that sports betting was legal in all 50 states was a lay opinion about the law rather than an actionable false representation of fact.
Key Takeaways
- Sports-event contracts that function like conventional sports wagers may constitute class III gaming under IGRA despite being marketed as federally regulated derivatives.
- Online gaming activity is located on Indian lands when a user places the wager there; the operator’s off-reservation headquarters or infrastructure does not remove the transaction from IGRA.
- The CEA and UIGEA do not create a blanket exemption from IGRA, but an unsettled claim about a product’s legality is not ordinarily actionable as a false factual statement under the Lanham Act.
Why It Matters
The decision recognizes that tribes may invoke IGRA against nontribal prediction-market operators offering unauthorized sports-event contracts to users on tribal lands. It also confirms that secretarial procedures, gaming ordinances, and IGRA’s enforcement mechanism can regulate gaming activity by entities that are not parties to a tribal-state compact.
The ruling does not itself grant an injunction. On remand, the district court must decide whether the tribes satisfy the remaining requirements, including irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public interest.