Lawmakers approve massive gambling expansion for FL but the deal faces state and federal hurdles
Craps, roulette, and other forms of gambling associated with casinos are coming to Florida. Sports betting, too.
The Florida House voted, 97-17, to that effect on Wednesday, capping a three-day special session on ratification of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ massive gambling compact with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. The Senate had done likewise just one day earlier.
Although the Seminole Gaming Compact drew bipartisan support, in floor debate Democrats raised a number of objections, including that the deal violates Amendment 3, the 2018 constitutional amendment requiring voter approval to expand gambling and that the Legislature was rushing through approval of an agreement that will bind the state for 30 years.
Randy Fine, the Brevard Republican who chaired the House’s Select Committee on Gaming, acknowledged there’s a chance the courts or the U.S. Department of the Interior could reject a key element of the gambling deal — a legal fiction that gambling is transpiring on Seminole land even if the bets are laid via cellphones across Florida.
But he noted that the tribe has agreed to share revenues on those expanded casino games even if that happens.
“This is a good deal. You can feel good about voting for it,” Fine said.
The legislation allows betting by people aged 21 and up on actual sporting events via cellphones from anywhere in the state, but the bets need to run through servers on tribal land.
This “hub and spoke” arrangement is designed to get around Amendment 3, approved by the voters in 2018, which requires any gambling expansion to go back to the voters. As a sovereign nation, the tribe isn’t bound by the amendment.
The tribe had ceased payments under a 2010 compact because the state was allowing pari-mutual facilities to offer poker games the tribe argued that compact had reserved to its casinos.
The legislation also expands casino-type games the tribe can run in its facilities to include craps, roulette, blackjack, and raffles and drawings.
Fine openly acknowledged that the hub-and-spoke provision is legally vulnerable: “Me, personally, I don’t think it’s going to survive,” he said.
But that’s a bet that mostly will affect the tribe, Fine continued. The Seminoles have agreed to pay more than a million per day regardless, based on the expansion of other casino games at the facilities. Overall, the compact guarantees at least a $2.5 billion return to the state within five years.
In any event, No Casinos, which sponsored Amendment 3 and has vowed to defend it, issued a pugnacious public statement.
“This fight is just beginning. We are committed to ensuring that the will of the people, who voted by a remarkable 72 [percent] landslide to give Florida voters the exclusive right to authorize casino gambling in our state, will be respected,” the group said.
“I don’t think there’s any chance of doing a gaming deal to the size and scope that was negotiated by Governor DeSantis without a legal challenge. Obviously, having this kind of agreement, you are navigating icebergs of legal hurdles as you do this,” House Speaker Chris Sprowls told reporters following adjournment
He expects to know the federal response by August.
“Interior has 45 days on whether or not to accept or reject the language of the compact,” Sprowls said. “If they reject the compact, then obviously this particular compact wouldn’t be in place. That’s their decision.”
Democrats offered a series of amendments directing the state’s share of gambling proceeds to their priorities, including kindergarten, domestic violence, affordable housing, and mental health and substance abuse programs.
However, Republican Rules chairman Paul Renner ruled them improper on the ground that the Legislature wasn’t authorized to renegotiate the compact. That spared members the obligation to cast public votes against the amendments.
Palm Beach County Democrat Omari Hardy, echoing other Democrats, argued the state could have struck a better deal with the tribe.
“This deal feels rushed. This deal feels like we came to the table with the Seminoles from a position of desperation,” Hardy said.
Separate legislation drops requirements that pari-mutuel facilities must hold greyhound, harness, or quarter-horse races, or jai alai games, to retain licenses to offer slot machines (dog races have already been abolished in Florida). Thoroughbred racetracks must continue to host live events.
House leaders have already persuaded the governor and tribe to drop language from the agreement that envisioned negotiations in three years about whether to allow online casino games statewide.
The deal allows pari-mutuel sites to continue to offer designated-player card games, which the state has allowed them to do in defiance of a 2010 compact that reserved banked games to the tribe.
The Seminoles have been withholding some $350 million per year in revenue sharing from the state over the dispute.
Additionally, the tribe may move, expand, or replace its existing seven casinos and add three more at its Hollywood site.
The pact envisions, but the legislation does not authorize, movement of existing slot machine operations at some unspecified future point as long as it’s to sites at least 15 miles distant from the tribe’s Hollywood casino. Not far outside that distance lie the Trump Doral Miami resort and Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach. Bill co-sponsor Sam Garrison of Clay County said such a move would require another act of the Legislature.
Similarly, the compact would allow remote fantasy sports betting through tribal servers by people aged 21 and up in principle, but both chambers opted not to allow that to happen right away — although the Legislature could vote to authorize these contests in the future.
Separate legislation drops requirements that pari-mutuel facilities must hold greyhound, harness, or quarter-horse races, or jai alai games, to retain licenses to offer slot machines (dog races have already been abolished in Florida). Thoroughbred racetracks must continue to host live events.
Democrat Dan Daley of Broward County mustered an impassioned defense of harness-racing breeders (noting that he grew up on a horse farm). The House leadership, apparently reluctant to send an amended bill back to a Senate that had already passed the bill, declared that Daley’s amendment failed in a voice vote.
Florida Phoenix reporter Danielle J. Brown contributed to this report.
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