Betting on sovereignty: Heinrich fights to guard tribal gaming from prediction markets

By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., led a dozen Senate Democrats in a July 17 letter urging leaders of two Senate committees so as to add tribal and state gaming protections to pending cryptocurrency laws, arguing the payments as written would let prediction markets provide sports activities and casino-style betting nationwide whereas sidestepping tribal sovereignty and state regulation.

The letter, despatched to the chairs and rating members of the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees, targets the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act and the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act, each below lively negotiation. Heinrich and his co-signers argue the payments’ exemptions for decentralized finance platforms would let prediction markets classify sports activities and occasion wagers as monetary derivatives reasonably than playing, letting them bypass the licensing and revenue-sharing necessities tribes negotiated below the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

The senators pointed to IGRA’s observe report, citing federal knowledge displaying reservation family revenue has climbed sharply since 1990 and that reservation baby poverty charges dropped from greater than 47% in 1989 to 27% by 2018. Prediction markets, they wrote, threaten to divert wagering income away from tribal governments that depend on gaming revenue to fund healthcare, housing, public security and schooling.

The letter asks committee leaders so as to add two provisions to the laws: a financial savings clause explicitly preserving IGRA and present tribal-state gaming compacts, and a ban on entities registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from itemizing contracts that mirror sports activities bets or on line casino video games. An addendum hooked up to the letter contains draft statutory language amending the Commodity Exchange Act to bar CFTC-regulated platforms from itemizing sports activities or casino-style contracts and to make clear that nothing within the crypto laws preempts IGRA, the Wire Act, or state and tribal gaming regulation.

Co-signers embrace Sens. Tina Smith, Maria Cantwell, Richard Blumenthal, Mark Kelly, Patty Murray, Tammy Baldwin, Alex Padilla, Jacky Rosen, Adam Schiff, Brian Schatz and Gary Peters. The letter is backed by the Indian Gaming Association, the National Congress of American Indians, and 17 tribes and pueblos, together with Santa Ana, Sandia, Zia, San Felipe, Jemez and Cochiti, because the CLARITY Act and DCIA proceed transferring by committee negotiations.

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