For now, it seems like legal California sports betting won't arrive in the state until 2028 at the earliest. That's the new target date, but that doesn't mean that people aren't still finding ways to get their wagers in. Prediction markets, such as Kalshi and others, are up and running in California. It's safe to say this has plenty of people quite upset. Well, a California tribal leader called out prediction markets over the betting impact. 

That's right, in a new interview with Front Office Sports, James Siva, the chairman of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association, didn't hold back with his thoughts on how these prediction markets are impacting the state. Straight up, Siva and other tribal leaders are not happy that these betting outlets are operating in a state where things are not legal. Because these types of apps are approved at a federal level, it has opened the door for California betting to be present.

“This is purely gaming,” Siva said via his interview with Front Office Sports.“Here in California, we’ve been looking at online betting for seven years, and all of the sudden we wake up and there’s online sports betting in every single city and on every single reservation in California."

Siva makes a solid point there. Local tribes have been working overtime in trying to get online sports betting legalized in The Golden State, but those efforts simply haven't gone according to plan. So, how is it fair that while sports betting has been made illegal, Kalshi, Robinhood and others have been able to get things going with no issues? This is a huge concern and it's one that will keep getting covered moving forward.

California tribes remain hopeful that prediction markets will get banned in the state

As you can see, this is a hot-topic issue. With that said, California tribes remain hopeful that prediction markets will get banned in the state, but there's no set deadline there for when a final decision is going to be made. There are several lawsuits that have been filed to bring this kind of betting to a stop in California. While that's a positive first step, these kinds of lawsuits take time and things aren't going to change overnight.

This has added to the frustration for things as a whole, especially for Siva and Co. The fact of the matter here is that the local tribes want the prediction markets to be taken off the board completely. Not only is sports betting involved, but casino-style games are also available, which goes against the laws that California has in place. If it were up to Siva, Kalshi and more would be out of business immediately in California. Local California senators feel the same way in trying to get things banned.

"We’re trying to get lawmakers to understand that the only bill we want is the bill that kills this completely," Siva told Front Office Sports in the recent interview the two sides had. "We don’t want to waste effort by putting forth a bill that has good intentions but actually causes further consequences."

For now, we're all going to have to play the waiting game and see how things go down. It will be interesting to see if Siva and fellow tribal leaders get some good news here overall in the near future, but the longer we wait for more updates to come in, the worse it's going to be for everyone involved.

California sports betting has had nothing but issues in trying to get legalized

What makes this all the more troubling is that California sports betting has had nothing but issues in trying to get legalized. For the California tribes, the issues with the betting prediction markets comes after previous run-ins with some of the major sportsbooks in the country. As most of you likely remember, the tribes and sportsbooks were in a battle not long ago.

That's because the two sides had two separate sports betting bills present on the ballot for local citizens to vote on. There was a bit of a war going on, with the tribes and sportsbooks going after one another on different kinds of ads. This led to both bills failing miserably, which now has the efforts at square one.

This is a bit ironic, as now prediction markets are the ones giving the tribes all sorts of issues right now. Moving forward, the hope is the tribes and sportsbooks can get on the same page and unite in this particular battle with the prediction markets. If that happens, needed, positive steps will likely be taken for the legal sports betting movement.