California Tribal Leader Outlines Goal for 2028 Sports Betting Ballot Measure

The chair of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association laid out the tribes’ strategy for putting a sports betting measure on California’s 2028 ballot, framing the effort as a tribal-led push to reclaim control of a market that voters soundly rejected just four years ago. James Siva discussed the plan on the New Normal podcast, hosted by Indian Gaming Association Conference Chair Victor Rocha and Executive Director Jason Giles, expanding on remarks he first made publicly in March at the IGA’s annual conference in San Diego.

If tribes move forward, the campaign would arrive six years after a bruising 2022 fight in which tribal casinos and commercial operators, including DraftKings and FanDuel, backed dueling ballot measures. Tribes supported Proposition 26, which would have legalized retail sports betting at tribal casinos and horse tracks, while sportsbooks pushed Proposition 27 for statewide online legalization. Voters crushed both, with Prop 27 going down by an 83% no vote.

Turning a Landslide Loss Into a Talking Point

Siva said tribes now treat that lopsided defeat as a point of leverage rather than a scar. “Prop 27 had 83% no. But in a lot of ways tribes take pride in that number,” Siva said. “We’re the ones who opposed that corporate bill. We had to sacrifice our tribal bill to make sure the corporate bill went down.” He argued that because tribes were the ones who campaigned against the operators’ measure, they have credibility with voters that outside companies lack. CNIGA has kept polling the electorate since, including as recently as June, to gauge how that trust is holding up.

Siva also pushed back on the idea that sportsbook operators have stopped working the political angles. He said the same divide-and-conquer approach from 2022 persists today, with companies trying to stir dysfunction among individual tribes. He credited CNIGA’s regular meetings with countering that strategy: “The more we talk, the more their position comes out and the less they can hide behind.”

Prediction Markets Reshape the Argument

A key difference from 2022 is the rise of prediction markets like Kalshi, Polymarket, and Robinhood, which have begun offering sports-outcome contracts to Californians without state licensing or age verification matching traditional gaming law. Siva said roughly 60% of Kalshi’s bettors come from California and Texas, the two largest states without regulated online sports betting, and that the platforms have shifted public perception dramatically. He cited internal polling showing 60% of Californians now believe online sports betting is already legal in the state, up from the 20s just a couple of years ago.

Siva plans to draw sharp contrasts between a tribal-run market and unregulated prediction platforms in the eventual campaign. Tribes would require bettors to be 21 or older and would be taxed and regulated by the state, he said, while prediction markets accept 18- to 20-year-olds and operate largely outside state oversight. “With prediction markets, you have nothing,” Siva said. “You don’t know who’s operating or where the money is going… The more we highlight that, the more it drives that point home.”

The 2028 Timeline and What Comes Next

Rocha noted that prediction markets are facing mounting legal challenges nationally, with cases potentially headed toward the Supreme Court, though the timing of any ruling remains unclear. Giles added that a Trump veto of any congressional bill curtailing prediction markets would be likely even if Democrats gain control of Congress, leaving the legal landscape uncertain heading into 2028.

Siva framed the ballot push as part of a broader multi-front campaign against the operators and prediction market platforms — politically, in the courts, in public relations, and eventually financially. “If we go to online sports betting in California, we can start cutting their legs out from under them, because everyone would rather play in a regulated OSB market than on a prediction market,” he said. Any successful 2028 measure would still require renegotiated tribal-state gaming compacts and regulatory implementation before a legal market could actually launch, meaning Californians would likely wait well beyond 2028 for a live sportsbook. For now, residents in states where legal online sportsbooks already operate continue to have access to regulated betting options that California voters have twice rejected.