Timing is everything.
Some might think 2028 is too late for California to revisit online sports betting given the rapid rise of prediction markets. Others might argue it's still too soon after voters overwhelmingly rejected legalization in 2022.
To some of California’s gaming tribes, however, 2028 sounds like an ideal time to ask state voters again to legalize online sports betting. And a lot can change between then and now, including the legal status of sports prediction markets and the public's opinion of legalizing online sports betting in the state.
Legalizing it via the tribes, of course.
- California gaming tribes are aiming for a 2028 ballot measure to legalize tribal-led online sports betting, arguing it would provide stronger regulation, consumer protections, and state revenue.
- The rapid growth of sports prediction markets has intensified the debate, with tribes challenging their legality and warning they threaten tribal sovereignty and funding for essential services.
- Tribes are using the extra time to monitor legal developments and study successful (and not-so-successful) models in other states.
“2028 is the goal,” said James Siva, chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association (CNIGA), during the latest episode of the Indian Gaming Association’s "New Normal" webcast.
Siva made similar comments during the recent National Council of Legislators from Gaming States' Summer Meeting in San Diego.
The chairman also said at NEXT.io’s New York Summit in March that they were "trying to work on something that will be not just foundational but will truly ... set the standard for what tribes can do moving into online gambling in the future."
However, Siva’s comments Wednesday come amid the ongoing rise and expansion of prediction markets and their sports-related event contracts. Those have made a de facto form of sports wagering available all over the U.S., including in California, which has not legalized sports betting.
Prediction market operators and their regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have argued their federal regulation and legislation puts them beyond the reach of state-level gambling rules.
This has triggered a growing number of lawsuits in the U.S. involving the exchanges, state gambling regulators, and the CFTC.
The CFTC was dealt a legal setback in Wisconsin this week on prediction markets, but an agency spokesperson says they will appeal "and continue to vigorously defend our jurisdiction over these markets":https://t.co/uPCGDo8j5Z @Covers
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 29, 2026
Nevertheless, Victor Rocha, the IGA’s conference chairman, noted that prediction markets have “become the proverbial bad guy” to some, and operators have been losing court cases recently, notwithstanding a timely win this past week in Minnesota.
The Supreme Court could also weigh in before 2028. A ruling against the exchanges could significantly curb prediction market operations in California. However, if SCOTUS sides with the exchanges and the CFTC, the tribes could still be in line to offer a competing product.
Ballot box blitz
Siva said the whole issue has in a lot of ways become “playing offense to play defense.”
He’s heard from some critics that California doesn’t have legalized sports betting and therefore no way to “actively fight” against prediction markets already facilitating wagering in the state.
Yet Siva suggested a tribal-led online sports betting market in California would, among other things, include more rigorous consumer protections and tax money for the state.
“Everything we do is well-regulated and well-protected,” Siva said. “And I think the more we compare and contrast who and what prediction markets are, and who tribes are and have been historically, I mean, it's night and day, it's black and white.”
Moreover, Siva says they have continued to survey the mood of California’s voters about various gambling-related issues.
The chairman said, for instance, that polling last month suggested there is a lot of positivity toward tribal gaming. That said, the polling also suggested around 60% of Californians believe that online sports betting is already legal in the state, up from approximately “20-something percent” two-and-a-half years ago.
“That's how much of an effect (prediction markets have) had on the mindset” of Californians, Siva said.
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There is some expensive history when it comes to trying to legalize online sports betting in California.
Dual (and dueling) ballot measures were defeated in 2022, with more than $400 million spent on the whole ordeal. One of those initiatives was tribal-led but was aimed at authorizing only in-person sports betting at racetracks and tribal casinos.
The online sports betting measure, backed by companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel, went down in flames in 2022 as well. Approximately 83% of voters sided against the initiative.
While that may seem ominous for another attempt at legalizing online sports betting in California, Siva noted it was the tribes who helped drive that opposition.
“In some ways, we had to sacrifice our tribal bill to make sure that corporate bill went down,” he said.
A growing number of state regulators view sports event contracts as sports betting by another name. So much so that 44 states wrote to the CFTC urging the federal agency to slam the brakes on proposed rules that would still permit a wide variety of sports event contracts to be offered.
Here is the conclusion of 44 states in their submission to the CFTC on the agency's proposed prediction market rules.
— Geoff Zochodne (@GeoffZochodne) July 28, 2026
In short, you can't do it, the rules are "in tension with the Constitution," and you should start over by saying sports betting is exclusively state turf. pic.twitter.com/qba65lDWe8
Gaming tribes across the U.S. are concerned about prediction markets, too. And CNIGA expressed its concerns recently as it weighed in on the CFTC’s proposed rules for prediction markets.
The group, which has 58 member tribes, told the CFTC it should withdraw the proposal or at least “affirm” that sports betting and other forms of gambling via the exchanges are contrary to the public’s interest.
The California tribes raised different types of concerns as well, such as claiming the CFTC “has failed to engage in any meaningful government-to-government consultation with the Tribe or other affected Tribes” despite that being a federal requirement.
“The Proposal would cause immediate and substantial harm by authorizing online wagering on sovereign Indian lands—in violation of (the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act) - and diverting revenue away from supporting critical government services, including health care, education, housing, elder and youth services, economic development, cultural and language preservation, and public safety for tribal citizens,” CNIGA’s submission to the CFTC said.
Time will tell whether the CFTC responds to the litany of concerns and complaints it heard during the consultation process. A final rule must still be published and then enacted. In the meantime, prediction market sites will continue to offer sports event contracts right in the backyards of California’s gaming tribes.
Long, long road
In that context, waiting until 2028 for another sports betting-related ballot initiative might seem crazy. Yet Siva said the wait means more people are asking questions about what prediction markets are, where they came from, and how their sports event contracts are legal.
The “long runway” in California has also allowed the tribes there to observe what tribes in other states have done and will do, Siva noted.
In Wisconsin, for example, the state’s tribes are in the process of hammering out an agreement with the governor that will allow them to offer statewide online sports betting.
What Minnesota lawmakers have proposed, Siva said, is the model they are “really looking at,” while noting Wisconsin still “has some interesting ideas.”
Both of those models put tribes in the driver’s seat when it comes to online sports wagering. And that (or a version of that) sounds like something CNIGA envisions for California.
“(California tribes are) trying to take those pieces of things that we like, but are actually practical and would work, especially recognizing California is probably the most complex state with tribal gaming,” Siva said.
