A New Mexico lawmaker is urging the state’s tribal gaming partners to reopen their gaming compacts to allow online sports betting, as the state remains one of the few markets in the U.S. still stuck with only in-person sports wagering.
New Mexico was the fifth state to legalize sports betting in 2018, but it has remained in-person at tribal casinos. Now, Rep. John Block requested the tribes open discussions for online New Mexico sports betting during an Indian Affairs Committee meeting this week.
The push comes as New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez has sued prediction market Kalshi, accusing the platform of violating state gambling laws by offering unlicensed online sports betting in a state that only allows gaming through tribal-state compacts or state-regulated licensing.
New Mexico online sports betting push
Block wants the intertribal gaming compact reopened to allow online sports betting, which would expand the state’s current retail-only framework and bring it in line with much of the rest of the country.
The compact framework is the core of how New Mexico regulates gaming. Tribal casinos operate under negotiated agreements with the state, and any expansion of sports betting would require renegotiation of those terms.
Block said the state is missing out on “tens of millions” of tax revenue dollars, per Source NM.
“It would be really nice, at least, to get some more revenue for people, because if people are already here operating in the state illegally online, then that robs you, it robs us, it robs every single New Mexican of that tax revenue,” Block said.
New Mexico-Kalshi lawsuits
The push for online sports betting comes even as New Mexico is fighting a legal battle with Kalshi over whether the platform’s sports event contracts are gambling.
New Mexico accuses Kalshi of violating a 1953 law that broadly criminalizes all forms of gambling except those regulated through the state’s Gaming Control Act. The state also alleges Kalshi is allowing users between 18 and 20 years old to place bets, while New Mexico requires gambling customers to be at least 21.
Kalshi’s lawsuit follows a separate federal lawsuit filed in May by Pojoaque, Sandia and Isleta pueblos and the Mescalero Apache Tribe, which alleges Kalshi enables sports gambling on tribal lands and interferes with tribal gaming revenues.
CFTC sues New Mexico
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has filed a federal lawsuit against New Mexico seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the state from enforcing gaming laws against Kalshi, arguing federal law grants the CFTC exclusive authority to regulate event contracts.
The CFTC filed the suit after New Mexico’s legal action against Kalshi, arguing New Mexico is trying to nullify federal law and decades of judicial precedent by imposing state gaming laws on federally regulated derivatives exchanges.
That legal fight adds another layer to New Mexico’s push for online sports betting, as the state is now trying to both expand its gaming framework and defend its regulatory authority against a federal regulator.
It is one of many lawsuits filed by the CFTC against states attempting to assert its jurisdiction over prediction markets.
