Four New Mexico tribes asked a federal judge on Sept. 4 to bar Kalshi from operating within tribal boundaries, arguing that the prediction market’s sports-related contracts amount to illegal gambling on sovereign land and undercut revenue that helps pay for schools and other services. The Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Pojoaque, Sandia and Isleta Pueblos said their final written filing supported a preliminary injunction against the company, with the case now before U.S. District Judge Margaret Strickland.
As reported in June, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez separately sued Kalshi over its sports-betting app. The tribal case itself began in May, when the same four plaintiffs accused Kalshi in federal court of violating tribal gaming compacts and federal law.
The tribes say New Mexico law and existing compacts allow sports bets only for people 21 and older and only in person at tribally owned casinos. Kalshi’s platform, they argued, gives anyone over 18 access to sports gambling in the state, creating irreparable harm for tribal governments that rely on gaming income for public services.
Their latest filing also asked the judge to order Kalshi to use geofencing so the app cannot be used on tribal land. The 19-page brief accused the company of relying on a “rash of red herrings via many material misstatements about this case and the law,” and said, “None of that improves Kalshi’s odds.”
Kalshi answered that the federal Commodities Exchange Act overrides the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and state gaming compacts, and that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sole discretion over the platform. In late August, the company said a rule forcing it off tribal land would cause “significant operational and commercial harm.”
The tribes pointed to the Ninth Circuit’s Aug. 28 ruling in KalshiEX v. Assad, where the panel affirmed a district court order dissolving a preliminary injunction for Kalshi and said the company had not shown that the Commodity Exchange Act pre-empts Nevada gaming law as applied to its sports-event contracts. The opinion also said those contracts were sports bets, not swaps, and noted that a coalition of 24 federally recognized tribes had urged the court to let Nevada regulators act.
Federal court records do not say when Judge Strickland will rule, but she has set a Sept. 23 hearing in Las Cruces to consider the parties’ competing requests.
