- Filed Oct. 8 in Broward County, the complaint targets Pick6 and DraftKings’ prediction-powered sports bets and names CEO Jason Robins.
- All five counts arise under state statutes and common law, and the filing never raises federal preemption.
- DraftKings answers that federal commodities law governs its event contracts, and its sportsbook is not offered in Florida.
- Kalshi has until Nov. 9 to answer New Jersey’s petition, which the NFL, 145 tribes and Ohio-led states want the justices to hear.
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – The Seminole Tribe of Florida asked a Broward County circuit judge on Oct. 8 to rule that two DraftKings products, Pick6 and the sports bets powered by its DraftKings Predictions unit, violate Florida’s gambling statutes. The 72-page filing names DraftKings Inc., CEO Jason Robins and GUS III LLC, which does business as DraftKings Predictions. Every claim rests on state law, and preemption, the question New Jersey has put to the U.S. Supreme Court in its Kalshi case, appears nowhere in it.
Complaint Rests On Florida Law, Not Federal Preemption
Relief sought in the complaint runs from an injunction shutting Pick6 and the Sports tab of the DraftKings Sports & Casino app in Florida to disgorgement of the company’s in-state profits. The lone racketeering count, under the state RICO act, is pleaded against Robins alone.
The first count invokes a state statute that lets a tribe holding a compact sue to enjoin unlawful gaming, and the other four follow under state RICO, deceptive-practices, unfair-competition and declaratory-judgment law. Nowhere does the filing cite the Commodity Exchange Act or use the word preemption.
The Tribe instead argues that DraftKings Predictions “is gambling” whatever its label, and it alleges the Sports tab runs on Predictions only in states where the company holds no sportsbook license. Any federal argument is left to DraftKings, which raised one in a statement.
DraftKings Cites The Commodity Exchange Act
DraftKings said in a statement that its “prediction markets offering operates in accordance with applicable law and the federal regulatory framework established under the Commodity Exchange Act.” It described Pick6 as “a peer-to-peer fantasy sports variant” that “is not sports betting.”
On its own Florida page, the company describes Sportsbook and Casino as unavailable in the state and the Sports & Casino app as carrying prediction markets. The all-50-state claim on its nationwide page, updated July 22, counts the sportsbook, DraftKings Predictions and free-to-play contests together, and the same page says Predictions is not offered on tribal land.
Two California Tribes Already Sued Kalshi
The Seminole Tribe is not the first tribe to sue a prediction-market operator.
Blue Lake Rancheria and Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, two California tribes, sued Kalshi and Robinhood under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, and the Ninth Circuit held Sept. 16 that they were likely to succeed because Kalshi’s contracts “constituted class III gaming activities under IGRA” when users entered them from tribal territory. The panel wrote that the Commodity Exchange Act and IGRA “address two different questions.” That case stands on federal Indian gaming law, and the Seminole case stands on Florida’s.
Ten Amicus Briefs Frame The Supreme Court Question
The Supreme Court docket for New Jersey’s petition in Flaherty v. KalshiEX, No. 26-299, lists ten amicus briefs through Oct. 8, among them the NFL, 145 tribes and tribal organizations, and Ohio with 38 other states and Washington, D.C. The NFL’s brief landed the same day as the Seminole complaint.
Filed Sept. 2, New Jersey’s Kalshi Supreme Court petition asks whether that act preempts state gambling law. The Third Circuit said April 6 that it likely does, and the Ninth Circuit, in KalshiEX v. Assad on Aug. 28, found Kalshi’s “sports event contracts are likely not swaps.” The same statute anchors DraftKings’ federal defense, and the split decides whether state law reaches the event contracts now sold on USA gambling sites.
Kalshi’s response to New Jersey’s petition is due Nov. 9, and the Tribe has asked the Broward court for a speedy hearing on its request for a declaration.