A Ninth Circuit panel spent Friday’s oral argument closely examining whether Kalshi Inc. and Robinhood Markets can keep offering sports event contracts to people located on tribal lands while the underlying lawsuit moves forward. The appeal stems from a district court decision denying a preliminary injunction requested by three California tribes in Blue Lake Rancheria, et al. v. Kalshi, Inc., et al.
Representing Blue Lake Rancheria, Chicken Ranch Rancheria and Picayune Rancheria, attorney Lester Marston argued the contracts become Class III gaming under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act whenever someone enters into one from tribal land.
“I go on the Blue Lake Rancheria … I see a Kalshi app and I download the app,” he said. Marston then described a user placing money on a sports contract whose payout would depend on the outcome of a game.
“If it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck,” Marston said.
A judge pointed to what appeared to be little practical difference between Kalshi’s product and a traditional sportsbook, noting Kalshi’s counsel had acknowledged the same transaction would be barred through DraftKings but allowed through Kalshi.
Tribal gaming protections dominate Kalshi Ninth Circuit appeal
Marston said the legal status changes once the activity occurs on tribal land. “The moment they come onto the reservation,” Marston argued, Kalshi is violating federal law and the civil provisions of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. He relied on Supreme Court precedent recognizing that conduct lawful elsewhere can become unlawful on a reservation.
He also argued tribal gaming ordinances, tribal-state compacts and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act work together as a single regulatory system. In his view, ordinances restrict gaming unless specifically authorized, the compacts require compliance with those ordinances, and violating an ordinance therefore breaches the compact. Challenging Kalshi’s reliance on federal commodities regulation, he added, “What Congress giveth, Congress taketh away,” while pointing to savings clauses he said preserve authority under other federal statutes.
Kalshi attorney Grant Mainland urged the panel to decide the appeal on narrower grounds. He argued the tribes cannot sue under the provision they cited because it authorizes claims only for gaming conducted in violation of a tribal-state compact. “There is no language in any compact or in any secretarial procedures that Kalshi could have violated here,” Mainland told the panel.
Mainland also maintained tribal ordinances are legally separate from the compacts and said the tribes never sought preliminary relief on the ordinance claim. When asked directly whether Kalshi’s products qualify as Class III gaming, he answered, “That is our position,” Mainland said when a judge asked him directly. “Not Class III gaming.”
The judges repeatedly questioned how Kalshi’s contracts differ in practice from sportsbook wagers. Mainland acknowledged there could be “some similarity” but argued designated contract markets and sportsbooks operate under different legal regimes.
Robinhood attorney Anthony Ryan focused on the injunction standard rather than the statutory dispute. “There’s no showing whatsoever,” Ryan argued, saying the tribes failed to demonstrate irreparable harm or customer diversion. The panel took the case under submission without issuing a ruling.
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