Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town has about 400 members and is headquartered in Wetumka, 85 miles southeast of Oklahoma City. For a small tribe without a casino, partnering with Kalshi seemed like a good opportunity to continue diversifying its revenue streams.
Prediction markets let adults buy and sell contracts tied to the future outcomes of events, such as who will win the NBA finals or the midterm elections. By entering this business with Kalshi, Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town owns the app PokkeTrades and runs the marketing, while Kalshi operates "the exchange layer beneath the platform."
Michael Stopp is the vice president of economic development for the tribe and a Cherokee Nation citizen. He helped develop this business venture and said Kalshi offered the infrastructure to engage in prediction markets.
"Kalshi gives them access to the market so they can engage in trades with a larger trading pool," Stopp said. "The tribe's purpose is to market to folks who may not already be using Kalshi. …There's a market out there that Kalshi isn't hitting, and people jump around from prediction market to prediction market all the time."
But becoming the first tribal nation in Oklahoma and one of the first in the country to join forces with a prediction market business is controversial.
The Oklahoma Indian Gaming Association, a non-profit organization that supports tribal nations with gaming operations in the state, said the markets disregard tribal gaming authority.
"We view sports prediction market apps as undermining the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Oklahoma Tribal-State compacts by allowing illegal Class III gaming to infringe upon the sovereignty of Tribal nations, and as undermining revenue streams that are critical to Tribal government programs and services," OIGA Chairman Matthew L. Morgan said in a statement.
The criticism extends beyond the state, with battles in dozens of courts around the country.
Last week, more than 140 tribes across the U.S. have asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, saying Kalshi and other similar platforms cause harm to the economic interests of tribes and their sovereignty.
The amicus brief they filed with the court said that prediction market platforms do not have to pay the same taxes that tribal sportsbooks pay or participate in the compacting process tribes do under IGRA.
Thirty-five tribes in Oklahoma have gaming compacts with the state. Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town is not one of them, as they currently have no gaming operations.
"When national prediction-market platforms directly and unlawfully compete with tribal gaming, they siphon much-needed revenue from Tribes, States, the federal government, and local governments and communities. And platforms like Kalshi do so in significant part precisely because they do not follow the rules that everyone else does," the brief said.
But Stopp calls the pushback noise. He said not all tribal nations are involved in gaming, and they can engage in prediction markets under the rules of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; they just have to decide if that makes sense for them.
"To say that all of Indian country is out there to protect gaming isn't a fair statement to make," Stopp said. "The reason why it seems so one-sided is because of the resources that those gaming tribes have developed using IGRA and their gaming revenues. So they have a much louder and disproportionate voice than a lot of other tribes."
Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town Chief Wilson Yargee said prime locations of tribal casinos have made many tribes wealthy. Launching PokkeTrades early on as a tribal nation could potentially give similar financial gains.
"Geography has kept many tribes from sharing in the prosperity that gaming created," Yargee said in a statement. "Prediction markets offer an opportunity to reach beyond those limits and build revenue for our people. We will respect every other tribe's authority on its land, and we expect the same respect for our authority to make this decision."
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
