Heinrich urges tighter limits on prediction markets to protect tribal gaming
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and 11 colleagues urged Senate committees to protect tribal gaming rights and state authority from unregulated prediction markets.
New Mexico pueblos and the Mescalero Apache Tribe backed the senators’ call for safeguards against nationwide sports betting and casino-style contracts
Organ Mountain News report
WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich is urging Senate committees to place tighter restrictions on prediction markets that offer sports wagering and casino-style gaming, arguing that the platforms threaten tribal sovereignty and bypass state gambling laws.
Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, led 11 Senate colleagues in a letter to the leaders of the Senate banking and agriculture committees. The senators asked lawmakers to amend two digital-asset bills now under consideration.
They want Congress to preserve tribal authority under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and prohibit entities regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from listing prediction contracts that resemble sports bets or casino games.
“We write with urgency regarding the continued lack of proper regulation over prediction markets and the resulting circumvention of state and Tribal gaming regulatory frameworks,” the senators wrote.
Organ Mountain News
The lawmakers said the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act could expand exemptions for decentralized-finance platforms, allowing prediction markets to offer wagering products across the country without complying with tribal-state gaming compacts or local gambling laws.
Prediction-market operators have argued that their event contracts are financial derivatives subject to federal commodities regulation rather than gambling products governed by states and tribes.
The senators rejected that distinction, saying sports-event contracts and online casino-style products could divert revenue that tribal governments use for health care, education, housing, public safety and social services.
“Any further Congressional grant of exclusive CFTC jurisdiction over digital asset markets without ample guardrails for prediction market contracts will reinforce the CFTC’s claimed exclusive authority over event contracts and permanently circumvent the hard-won regulatory and economic protections established under IGRA and states’ police powers,” they wrote.
The proposed safeguards would state explicitly that federal digital-asset legislation does not override tribal authority or existing tribal-state compacts. They would also bar online sports wagering and event-based prediction markets in jurisdictions where tribes hold gaming rights.
The letter was supported by the Indian Gaming Association, National Congress of American Indians and 17 New Mexico tribal governments, including Santa Ana, Sandia, Isleta, Laguna, Acoma, Taos and Pojoaque pueblos and the Mescalero Apache Tribe.
Heinrich was joined by Democratic Sens. Tina Smith of Minnesota, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray of Washington, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Gary Peters of Michigan.
The full text of the letter is here.
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