Washington Adds Spokane, Chehalis Tribes to College Sports Betting

The Washington State Gambling Commission announced on September 17, 2026 that the Spokane Tribe of Indians and the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation have each reached tentative agreement on amendments to their Class III gaming compacts, clearing the way for both tribes to offer wagering on in-state college athletics at their casinos. The amendments implement provisions of RCW 9.46, the state betting statute the legislature revised earlier in 2026 to permit limited college sports wagering for the first time.

For the Spokane Tribe, whose Spokane Tribe Casino sits outside Airway Heights near the tribe's ongoing resort expansion, this is the fifth amendment to a compact originally signed February 16, 2007. For the Chehalis Reservation, it is the eighth amendment to a compact that dates to December 21, 1992, and was restated in June 2022. Both amendments now move to the U.S. Department of the Interior for the standard 45-day federal review that every Class III compact modification must clear before it takes effect.

What the Amendments Actually Allow

The new language is deliberately narrow. It authorizes wagers on in-state college teams, but it carves out several categories that state regulators consider higher-risk: no bets on an individual player's statistical performance, no wagers tied to in-game officiating decisions or particular plays, and no market open to anyone previously convicted of threatening a coach, official, or participant. Washington State Gambling Commission Chairperson Sarah Lawson framed the changes as a direct response to the legislature's action rather than a policy choice made by regulators themselves.

"These revisions adopt provisions of RCW 9.46 passed by the legislature in 2026 to authorize sports wagering on college sports, with limitations," Lawson said in the Commission's announcement.

Spokane Tribal Chairman Greg Abrahamson welcomed the pace of implementation, thanking Commission staff for what he called "respectful and prompt actions" in updating the compact language, and noted the practical effect for bettors: fans of the Gonzaga Bulldogs and Washington State Cougars now have a legal, in-state, tribally regulated way to wager on those programs rather than relying on offshore books or unregulated apps.

One Piece of a Broader Compact-Amendment Wave

Spokane and Chehalis are not outliers this year. Washington's 29 gaming tribes have been working through a steady stream of Class III amendments in 2026 as the state's compact-amendment wave works through the legislature's new sports-betting and technology provisions tribe by tribe — the Cowlitz Tribe's amendment at ilani, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community's ninth amendment, and the Squaxin Island Tribe's restated compact among them. Because Washington negotiates compacts tribe by tribe rather than through a single master agreement, each amendment has to move through this same process individually, which is why the state's rollout of college wagering has arrived in a series of announcements rather than a single effective date.

That structure has upsides and downsides for tribes. It preserves each nation's sovereign authority to negotiate terms specific to its own gaming operation, consistent with the government-to-government model IGRA was built around. But it also means a single piece of state legislation can take the better part of a year to fully reach every compacted tribe, since Interior review timelines and Commission scheduling apply separately to each agreement. For a market fan base that already has legal, mobile access to professional sports wagering, the staggered rollout of college wagering has meant some in-state bettors gained access months before others depending on which tribal casino is closest to them.

Washington's state gaming hub tracks each tribe's compact status as amendments clear Interior review. Once the Spokane and Chehalis amendments are published in the Federal Register — the final procedural step before they take legal effect — both tribes will be positioned to take college sports wagers as soon as their internal systems and staff are ready, likely in time for the heart of the college basketball season.

Why College Wagering Took Longer Than Professional Sports

Washington's tribes have offered legal sports wagering on professional leagues since 2021, under compact amendments negotiated in the wake of the state's original sports-betting authorization. College sports wagering lagged behind for years, largely over the same concerns that show up in this month's amendment language: lawmakers and university athletic departments worried that wagering markets touching student-athletes — who are not paid league professionals and, in some cases, are still minors when they begin college competition — carried a different risk profile than wagering on the NFL or NBA. The compromise embedded in RCW 9.46's 2026 revisions and now flowing into each tribe's compact reflects that concern directly: in-state teams only, no player-performance props, and a codified ban on bettors with a history of threatening participants or officials.

That cautious approach puts Washington in line with how several other states have handled the same question in recent years, allowing game-level wagering — point spreads, moneylines, game totals — while walling off the prop-bet markets that have drawn the most scrutiny nationally over concerns about harassment of college athletes and the integrity risks that come with betting on an individual player's in-game performance.

For the two tribes involved, the amendments are also a reminder of how much day-to-day regulatory work sits underneath a single piece of state legislation. Passing RCW 9.46 was one vote. Translating it into enforceable compact language for 29 separate sovereign gaming tribes, each with its own compact history and amendment number, is a year-long administrative undertaking that the Gambling Commission and tribal gaming offices are still working through — a process that will likely continue well into 2027 for any tribes that have not yet finalized their own college-wagering language.