Indian Gaming Association (IGA) Chairman David Bean is set to testify before a US House Agricultural Subcommittee in Washington DC, where he will discuss “significant concerns” prediction markets could pose for Tribal gaming.
Chairman Bean will “present the perspectives of Tribal governments and (IGA) on the expansion of sports event prediction markets” as part of his testimony before the US House Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets and Rural Development.
Presented as “Examining Customer Protections and Market Integrity in Sports Event Prediction Markets,” the hearing will take place on July 21, representing Tribal regulators’ next phase of pushing back against event contract trading.
On January 13, Chairman Bean and American Gaming Association (AGA) President and CEO Bill Miller issued a joint letter to US lawmakers, urging them to take action against unregulated prediction market offerings.
“These contracts are being offered in flagrant disregard of state laws, Tribal sovereignty, the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. They mislead consumers into believing that a sports bet is an investment, fail to protect the young and the vulnerable, open the door to money laundering, match fixing and insider trading,” Miller and Chairman Bean said.
“They rob state budgets and Tribal finances while simultaneously forcing states and Tribes to expend massive legal resources to defend their sovereignty.”
In Arizona, where many Tribal organizations conduct gaming operations, Governor Katie Hobbs issued a new executive order to counteract potential insider trading efforts from government employees, following the approval for a temporary restraining order from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in April.
While the approval did not grant prediction market operators authorization to begin conducting business in Arizona, the decision did represent a backtrack from state lawmakers and allowed Kalshi to avoid legal action.
Following Governor Josh Stein’s decision to sign a new state budget into law, North Carolina became the first state to recognize the CFTC’s ‘exclusive’ authority over prediction markets on July 7
