NIGC chair vacancy limits key regulatory powers for record $46 billion tribal gaming industry

A months-long leadership vacancy at the National Indian Gaming Commission has stalled tribal casino agreements and curtailed key federal enforcement powers, raising concerns over regulatory oversight of a tribal gaming industry that generated a record $46 billion in 2025.

The three-member commission has been without a chairperson since January, and President Donald Trump has not nominated a successor. Federal law places key enforcement authority with the chair, preventing the agency from carrying out functions including certifying casino management agreements, approving new tribal gambling laws, citing certain legal violations and ordering emergency closures of unsafe facilities.

The disruption is already affecting the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, whose Harrah’s-branded casino in Chandler opened in April. An agreement for Harrah’s parent company to assume day-to-day management cannot be certified without a commission chair, leaving tribal government staff to operate the 175,000-square-foot casino alongside their existing responsibilities for budgets and social programs.

“It’s discouraging. We’re paying a fee and not getting the full value,” Iowa Tribe Chairman Jacob Keyes said in a report by the Associated Press.

The tribe pursued the management arrangement partly because it expected the Harrah’s brand to generate demand beyond what its existing staff could handle. The casino reached capacity on opening day, with vehicles lining up outside the property.

About 250 tribal governments across 29 states operate 545 gambling facilities. Casino revenue funds healthcare, housing, education and other tribal services, with 2025 tribal gaming revenue reaching nearly three times Nevada’s annual casino revenue.

The commission’s last enforcement action was issued January 12, the same day acting chairperson Sharon Avery’s term expired. Avery remains a commissioner. In a typical year, the agency issues citations involving unauthorized casino locations, missing financial statements, misuse of gambling revenue and other violations.

Former Acting Chairperson and current Commissioner Sharon Avery

Jonodev Chaudhuri, who chaired the NIGC from 2013 to 2019, said the leadership gap has left the regulator constrained at a critical time for the industry. Steven Light, a tribal gambling law expert at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told AP uncertainty over regulation could also discourage investment and slow business expansion.

The vacancy coincides with a growing dispute between tribes and online prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket. At least eight tribes have sued prediction-market platforms, alleging they accept wagers on tribal lands and in states where tribes hold exclusive gambling rights in violation of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which the NIGC is responsible for enforcing.

Prediction-market operators dispute the claims, arguing that users participate in futures trading rather than gambling. Tribal leaders say the platforms could threaten both gambling revenue and tribal sovereignty.

Former commission officials have also raised concerns over the absence of the chair’s traditional advocacy role in Washington while federal authorities consider how prediction markets should be regulated.

James Siva, head of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association and vice chairman of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, has questioned whether the Trump administration’s support for and business ties to the prediction-market industry are connected to the vacancy.

The last Senate-confirmed chairperson completed the term during former President Joe Biden’s administration without a successor being appointed.

Trump appointed Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, to the commission in April, prompting concerns from some former officials about executive branch influence over an agency intended to operate independently.