Ninth Circuit deals blow to Kalshi on tribal land

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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March of the Spoons

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Stchoop · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday that prediction market Kalshi is likely violating California law by letting users place sports bets, dressed up as ‘event contracts,’ on Native American reservations. The unanimous panel found that regardless of vocabulary, a $100 wager on a Giants game placed from inside a tribal casino is still class III gaming under tribal law.

Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians sued Kalshi and Robinhood, arguing the companies ignored tribal exclusivity over sports betting and advertised falsely that betting was ‘legal in all 50 states.’ The court ordered the trial judge to reconsider an injunction on the tribal-rights claim, though it let the advertising claim go as nonactionable opinion.

An attorney for the tribes called Kalshi a $44 billion company that refused a cheap geofencing fix out of greed, and asked why California's attorney general hasn't intervened. The ruling sets up a likely path to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to the tribes' counsel.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A company worth $44 billion decided it was cheaper to fight two tribes in court than draw a line on a map around their land. That's the kind of math that only makes sense if you assume the other side won't have the stamina to see it through. The court just told them the stamina paid off, at least for now.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: March of the Spoons · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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