Alabama-Quassarte sues Kalshi to halt planned PokkeTrades launch

The Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town and Sam Marshall have sued Kalshi and three individuals in an effort to stop the planned launch of PokkeTrades, a prediction-market app announced as a partnership between the Oklahoma tribe and the exchange operator.

The complaint, filed Oct. 30 in Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court, names Kalshi Inc., Wilson Yargee, Michael Stopp and Kalshi chief executive Tarek Mansour as defendants. It seeks emergency relief, a jury trial and an attorney lien claim. The plaintiffs contend that Yargee lacked sovereign authority to approve the venture and improperly presented himself as the tribe’s chief in dealings with Kalshi.

According to Mvskoke Media, the case is docketed as CV-2026-0173. The Bureau of Indian Affairs leadership directory identifies the tribe as being in a dispute between Marshall and Yargee.

As we reported Oct. 7, Marshall’s administration had already denied that it had entered a Kalshi agreement, saying it had neither entered nor signed a contract for the app.

Kalshi announced PokkeTrades on Oct. 7, identifying Yargee as chief and describing a November launch on its federally regulated exchange. Under the company’s model, the tribe would own the customer-facing application and control its branding, marketing and customer relationship; Kalshi would supply exchange operations including matching, clearing, custody and market surveillance.

The suit places that proposed arrangement inside a long-running contest over Alabama-Quassarte leadership. Marshall has said Yargee was removed months after a 2021 election, that he was then appointed by the governing committee and won election as chief in 2025. Yargee has disputed his removal, said he was reelected in 2025 and maintained that he had authority to make the Kalshi agreement.

Kalshi has stood by its agreement with Yargee’s administration. A company spokesperson, Jacki McGavick, told Oklahoma Voice before the lawsuit that a signed agreement had been approved by the tribal council. Yargee said the contract had not yet produced revenue and that any proceeds would pass through the tribe’s economic development authority.

The leadership dispute has generated at least three lawsuits. A case between the factions in Muscogee (Creek) Nation District Court was dismissed in 2022 for lack of jurisdiction, while a federal suit brought by the Marshall group was dismissed in 2023 on the same ground. In a separate Okmulgee County case, a final order removed Yargee as a signatory on tribal bank accounts and found Carol Taylor to be the lawful custodian and signatory.

The dispute also arrives amid a broader tribal challenge to Kalshi’s sports-event contracts. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation joined a Supreme Court amicus brief on Oct. 8 arguing that prediction-market companies threaten tribal self-governance and self-sufficiency, though PokkeTrades itself is the subject of an internal authority dispute rather than that litigation.