By Kevin Hendricks — New Mexico’s tribal casinos fund everything from health clinics to police departments — and Sen. Martin Heinrich says a crypto bill moving through the Senate could quietly drain that money away.
Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, voted Tuesday against advancing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, arguing it opens a loophole for “prediction markets” to offer sports betting and casino-style games online without playing by tribal or state gambling rules. He plans to introduce an amendment protecting the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and tribal-state compacts, and barring federally regulated platforms from listing bets that look and act like sports wagers.
Prediction markets have leaned on a legal gray area, classifying sports bets as financial products regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than gambling regulated by states and tribes. Heinrich says that dodge threatens casino revenue New Mexico’s pueblos and the Mescalero Apache Tribe rely on for essential services.
Heinrich also backs a separate amendment, led by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), that would stop stablecoin companies from paying bank-like interest or rewards — a practice critics say could pull deposits away from local banks. In July, Heinrich led a letter on the prediction-markets issue backed by the Indian Gaming Association, the National Congress of American Indians and 16 pueblos and tribes across the state.