Earlier this year, Kansas’ four federally recognized tribes were authorized to amend their gambling compacts with Governor Laura Kelley’s administration to offer sports betting. That includes the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s compact, which would be changed to allow the tribe to offer a sports betting app, as long as the web server hosting the platform is located on tribal land.
State Senator Tom Holland told the Topeka Capital-Journal, “It is complicated stuff. But I do believe this was brought forth and the state negotiated in good faith with the tribe to get this done.”
But the tribe can’t move forward with its sports betting plans due to a federal court case involving the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the state’s commercial casinos.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of the Interior approved an agreement that would have given the tribe a monopoly over sports betting throughout Florida, since the server supporting sports betting would be located on tribal property. The state Legislature passed a bill approving the compact and Governor Ron DeSantis signed it.
However, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich declared the arrangement to be a “fiction” and rejected the compact. The Seminoles and President Joe Biden’s administration appealed the case to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Its outcome could have a significant impact on the Prairie Band Potawatomi, since its amended compact would call for a similar arrangement as the Seminoles’.
Previously the Prairie Band Potawatomi have indicated they expected to launch sports betting this year.
