Who’s in Charge of the Oklahoma Tribe Doing Business With Kalshi?

Over the last month, Kalshi has reached agreements with five Native American tribes to launch branded prediction-market apps powered by the company. The tribes will receive a percentage of the fees Kalshi collects on trades.

But one Oklahoma tribal leader says Kalshi was duped by an impostor who had no authority to enter into an agreement with the company. Kalshi says the deal is still on, and a consultant who helped broker the arrangement says it was made by the tribe’s legitimate leadership.

The competing claims expose an ongoing dispute over who has the authority to speak for the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town, an Oklahoma tribal nation with fewer than 500 members. They also underscore a divide among the country’s 575 federally recognized tribes over prediction markets.

Kalshi’s first tribal deal, with Louisiana’s Tunica-Biloxi Tribe, was announced in September. Kalshi cofounder and CEO Tarek Mansour posted a letter on social media saying that while he understands why some tribal leaders are concerned about prediction markets, “tribal sovereignty also means different Tribes will make different choices.” Four more agreements were announced this month, with Alabama-Quassarte and three California tribes: the Greenville Rancheria, Kletsel Dehe Wintun Nation, and Alturas Indian Rancheria.

These deals come as many tribes have opposed the rise of prediction markets. Tribes in New Mexico, California, and Wisconsin have sued Kalshi and other prediction-market platforms, and earlier this month a coalition of 145 tribes asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a case centered around the issue of sports event contracts.

Tribal Leadership Dispute 

There are two men who each claim to lead Alabama-Quassarte: Samuel Marshall Jr. and Wilson Yargee. 

“This other group, they’re not even members,” Marshall tells Front Office Sports. “We know the impact something like this might have with the states and other tribes. And that is not something we are looking to get in a fight with.”

Marshall says his faction is the legitimate leadership, and that it never authorized an agreement with Kalshi. He only found out about the deal through a CNN report.

Complicating matters is that the U.S. federal government lists both Marshall and Yargee as chiefs of the tribe, while noting there is a “tribal leadership dispute.” A representative for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs confirmed to FOS that the government’s view is that there are currently two people who claim to be chief, but declined to comment further.

Brian Palmer, who is listed as tribal administrator on the tribe’s website, tells FOS that although Yargee was elected as the chief of the tribe in May 2021, by October he had been removed from office. 

“That individual is still making claims that he is the legitimate elected leader,” Palmer says. “But there is nothing that legally allows them to enter into any agreements on behalf of our sovereign nation.”

Whether or not his removal was legitimate remains unclear. In 2022, both sides claimed they should be the ones to receive mail on behalf of the tribe, which led to an administrative proceeding overseen by the U.S. Postal Service. In an initial decision from November of that year, the USPS said Yargee was entitled to receive the mail because Marshall had failed to provide evidence that “a majority vote of the members of the town” had resulted in Yargee’s lawful removal. The following month, a judicial officer for the USPS affirmed that decision.

“First, I recognize the parties’ significant dispute over tribal governance and laws,” the decision said. “But the Judicial Officer Department has no interest in the outcome of that long-running dispute. Rather, our interest in the case centers on assisting the local postmaster to ensure timely delivery of the mail.”

“These guys had control of the money and didn’t want to let it go”

Palmer says he, Marshall, and others in leadership have not heard from Kalshi. “No contact with Kalshi. No representatives have reached out to us at all.”

A representative for Kalshi tells FOS that Alabama-Quassarte’s tribal counsel “approved an agreement with Kalshi to launch a prediction market, and there is a signed agreement in place to that effect.”

Kalshi’s deal was brokered by Michael Stopp, a consultant who says he’s a member of the Cherokee Nation and is of Muscogee Creek descent. He previously served as chief of staff to then-Rep. Markwayne Mullin, now the U.S. secretary of homeland security. Stopp tells FOS the Bureau of Indian Affairs has “dropped the ball on resolving what, in our view, is not even a legitimate conflict.”

A group of about 15 people voted to remove Yargee from leadership, according to Stopp, but he says that vote was not legitimate and doesn’t represent the views of the entire tribe. “Parts of that group had been in previous leadership positions, and had access to things like the website and certain records.”

Stopp says the group that removed Yargee is trying to avoid an audit. “These guys had control of the money and didn’t want to let it go,” he tells FOS.

According to Stopp, the “entire leadership dispute” arises from an issue that dates back to 2020, when the U.S. Department of Justice issued prison sentences for two former tribal leaders, George Phillip Tiger and Aaron Dewayne Terry, over bribery, theft, and embezzlement charges tied to federal funding programs. Stopp says Yargee was “elected after that with the people looking for a change.”

In 2022, the Marshall coalition sued Yargee and others in federal court, but the case was dismissed in September 2023. The judge did not rule on which side is really in charge, instead saying it was “an intertribal governance dispute” that fell “outside this court’s jurisdiction.”

Today, the two sides remain at an impasse, and there are no plans to try and mediate the situation. 

“We attempted that at one point,” Stopp tells FOS. “There is no longer any interest in doing that.”