Want more from Front Office Sports
in your search results?
Kalshi, its CEO, and a man who claims to be the chief of one the Native American tribes it reached a prediction-market deal with last month have been sued by another man who says he’s the tribe’s rightful chief.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 30 in the Okmulgee District of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court by the Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town and Samuel Marshall Jr., who claims he is the rightful chief of the Oklahoma tribal nation that features fewer than 500 members. The suit was first reported by Mvskoke Media.
It comes just over a month after Kalshi announced agreements with Alabama-Quassarte and three other tribes to partner on prediction-market apps that will be powered by Kalshi, with the tribes receiving a percentage of the fees Kalshi collects on trades. In total, Kalshi has announced deals with five tribes since September.
The app from Kalshi and Wilson Yargee, one of two men who each claim to be the tribe’s chief, will be called PokkeTrades, and is expected to launch this month.
Following the announcement, Marshall told Front Office Sports that Yargee had no authority to enter into the deal. “This other group, they’re not even members,” Marshall told FOS.
The suit names as defendants Kalshi, its cofounder and CEO Tarek Mansour, Yargee, and Michael Stopp, the consultant who brokered the deal with Kalshi. Reached for comment about the lawsuit, Stopp told FOS “we expect the case to be dismissed.”
According to the suit, the “claimed affiliation has forced the Town to spend time and money correcting the record, damaged its commercial goodwill, disrupted its authorized business relationships, and created confusion about who its authorized representatives are.”
The suit seeks an immediate temporary restraining order that would stop PokkeTrades from launching this month. If the app is allowed to launch, “users, counterparties, and other tribal governments will treat it as the Town’s business and the Town will not be able to correct that impression with each of them,” the 26-page complaint says.
The tribe’s reputation has already been damaged, the suit says. It was “excluded” from the 83rd annual convention and marketplace put on by the National Congress of American Indians in Palm Springs, California. According to the suit, the exclusion was specifically tied to Alabama-Quassarte’s public association with PokkeTrades. “The Town was described as harming tribal sovereignty,” the suit says. The NCAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complaint features 10 counts, including fraud and deceit, false advertising, and civil conspiracy. It wants the defendants to “correct their representations,” including by telling the public Marshall is the tribe’s legitimate chief. It also seeks compensatory and punitive damages, and other relief as deemed just by the court.
Complicating matters is the fact 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 last month to FOS that the government’s view is that there are currently two people who claim to be chief, but declined to comment further.
Asked for comment on the lawsuit, a Kalshi representative shared the same statement they offered last month, saying the tribal council “approved an agreement with Kalshi to launch a prediction market, and there is a signed agreement in place to that effect.”
The company’s push to work with tribes comes as many in the Native American community have opposed the rise of prediction markets. Tribes in New Mexico, California, and Wisconsin have sued Kalshi and other prediction-market platforms, and last 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. Last week, a federal judge in California ruled that Kalshi cannot offer sports-event contracts on tribal lands in the state while a lawsuit brought by the Blue Lake Rancheria last summer plays out.
Download the FOS App
The business of sports, in your pocket.
Scan the QR code to get the app now.
