USCA4 Appeal: 25-1892
Doc: 44
Filed: 12/22/2025
Pg: 23 of 39
betting contracts, and UIGEA excludes event contracts from its definition of “bet or wager.” See Appellant Br. at 54, ECF No. 16. Kalshi vaguely argues that the exclusion for DCM transactions from the definition of “bet or wager” in 31 U.S.C. § 5362 should be “harmonized” with IGRA, implying that IGRA’s requirements are somehow repealed by UIGEA. Id. But this ignores UIGEA’s own language that “[n]o provision of this subchapter shall be construed as altering, limiting, or extending any Federal or State law or Tribal-State compact prohibiting, permitting, or regulating gambling within the United States.” 31 U.S.C. § 5361(b). UIGEA “prevents using the internet to circumvent existing state and federal gambling laws, but it does not create any additional substantive prohibitions.” California v. Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel , 898 F.3d 960, 965 (9th Cir. 2018). While UIGEA may provide insight as to what the term “sports betting” generally means, its statutory exceptions should not be imported wholesale into IGRA. 8 C. Kalshi’s theory does not meet the standard for implied repeals. Kalshi’s preemption argument and interpretation of “swap” must be rejected because they would manufacture an implied repeal of IGRA where none exists.
8 See 152 Cong. Rec. H8029–30 (daily ed. Sept. 29, 2006) (statement of Rep. Leach) (explaining UIGEA’s definition of a “bet or wager” does not change the principle that “if a person on tribal lands plays a gambling game with a state-based gambling business, the game must not violate tribal law”).
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