What happens when a $46 billion industry doesn't have a leader?

Tribal gambling is a $46 billion industry. That's almost three times the revenues at Nevada casinos in Las Vegas and Reno.

Native American tribes rely on casinos to fund things like healthcare, education, and housing. But there's a key vacancy in Washington throwing a wrench in their day-to-day operations.

Savannah Peters has been reporting on this. She's an indigenous affairs reporter for the Associated Press. She spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host Nova Safo and the following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Nova Safo: What's going on? What's happening in Washington?

Savannah Peters: So, the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) is this three-person independent regulatory board, but its most important oversight tasks are vested in its chairperson. And the commission has been operating without a chairperson since January. The experts I spoke to said the longer this commission isn't operating at full strength, the more that could hamper business growth and investment in tribal gambling.

Safo: And how does that play out on the ground, in tribal lands and tribal casinos?

Peters: One big impact is that the commission's enforcement powers are really weakened when it doesn't have a chair. The NIGC says that its field staff are still keeping an eye on tribal casinos around the country, but without a chairperson in Washington, it really can't cite or fine tribes for any violations of federal gaming law that it might find.

Then, the other big impact is to management contracts, and these are business deals between tribes and outside casino operators that need the chairperson's signature. I spoke with the chairman of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, which opened a new casino in April. But Chairman Jacob Keyes said a long-planned deal for the gambling giant Harrah's to take over day-to-day operations of that new property is on ice. And in the meantime, his small tribal government staff are having to manage the casino, which is this major burden that they didn't really plan for.

Safo: How worried are tribes about kind of the year ahead? Are they concerned about revenues getting affected?

Peters: Tribes are really concerned, and the area that concerns them the most is actually not related to those duties that are clearly defined in law, but related to the NIGC's chair's role as sort of an advocate for tribal gaming in Washington. Right now, tribal gaming is facing this new threat from prediction market platforms, which have really exploded in popularity since the 2024 election, including from tribal lands and in states where tribes have negotiated the exclusive right to offer gambling. Tribes say prediction markets in that way are violating federal Indian gaming law and their sovereignty. At least eight have filed lawsuits to that effect.

And past commissioners and staffers have told me that typically the chairperson of the National Indian Gaming Commission would be sounding the alarm about this in Washington and advocating for the interests of gaming tribes.

Safo: And what have we heard, if anything, from the Trump administration? Are they open to getting the commission back up and running?

Peters: Yeah, I reached out to the White House, and a spokesperson told me that the Trump administration values the National Indian Gaming Commission. But they didn't answer my question about whether or when it plans to nominate a new chair to lead the agency.

Some tribal leaders I've spoken to have pointed out that the Trump administration has really strongly backed prediction markets, and they say because of that, it's no coincidence that the administration doesn't seem eager to fill this vacancy. Others were more skeptical of that, and they point out that this leadership gap actually dates back to the Biden administration when the last Senate-confirmed chair termed out with no replacement on deck. So this could just be yet another example of something that's really important to tribes being sidelined in Washington.