Florida has already earned $120 million from its take on sports betting since the Seminole Tribe went live with their Hard Rock Bet digital wagering platform last November. Per the compact, the Seminoles are required to pay the state $2.5 billion over the first five years, or $500 million per year.
If the state pulls in that kind of dough, imagine what the tribe earns. You can see why the state and tribe wish to keep the status quo as it is now, and how the legal longshot carried out by parimutuels rankles the two entities. West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corporation, which operate racetracks and poker rooms in the state, don’t much care who they rankle. They have two prongs still afloat, one seeking a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court, the other before the Florida Supreme Court.
At the heart of the court cases is whether the Seminoles can claim bets are made on their tribal land when only the servers are within the borders after bets are placed online anywhere in the state.
The 2021 compact signed by the state and tribe not only gives the Seminoles a monopoly but makes an end run around the requirement for a constitutional amendment for new forms of gambling, another point of argument.
“Through this artifice, the compact transparently attempts to get around the Florida Constitution,” the firms’ attorneys said. “The whole point of the compact is to provide a hook for dodging Florida’s constitutional requirement of a popular referendum to approve off-reservation sports betting.”
In a case pending before the Florida Supreme Court, the tribe argued the legislature has the authority to decide where, when and how sports betting is conducted for the good of all and the amendment is irrelevant. “The 2021 Compact is an historic agreement between the Tribe and State that settled years of disputes,” the Seminole Tribe said in an amicus brief. The tribe is not a party to the lawsuit.
The parimutuel firms also sued Governor Ron DeSantis and leaders of the Florida Legislature, which said yes to the compact’s contents, according to the Associated Press.
Attorneys for DeSantis and the legislative leaders argue sports betting is different from casino gambling and therefore isn’t prohibited by the amendment.
“As an important source of revenue for both the Seminole Tribe and the State—and even the Tribe’s competitors—the 2021 compact serves the public interest and has been upheld in federal court,” attorneys told the state justices.
The parimutuel firms’ latest petition before the U.S. Supreme Court was filed February 8. The U.S. Dept. of the Interior has until April 12 to submit its response.
If the justices don’t weigh in, Florida’s example could inspire other states to allow tribes to expand online gaming, Daniel Wallach, a South Florida attorney, and sports betting law expert said in a high court brief.
In related news, a bill in Florida to legalize and regulate daily fantasy sports (DFS) went nowhere fast. Senate Bill 1568 failed to advance to the Senate floor. Under the terms, DFS operators would fall under the auspices of the Florida Gaming Control Commission (FGCC).
Credit State Senator Travis Hutson for the effort. His bill would set up application procedures, implement consumer protections, and prohibit betting on college sports.
“No winning outcome is based on the score, point spread, the performance of a single team or combination of teams; solely on any single performance of an individual athlete or player in a single event. All winning outcomes must reflect the relative knowledge and skill of participants and be determined by accumulated statistical results of the performing individuals, including athletes in the case of sporting events,” the bill read.
A companion bill, SB 1566 would establish the regulations. For example, the licensing fees and procedures were in SB 1566.
One obvious reason for SB 1568’s failure is that Florida lawmakers want to protect tribal exclusivity on gaming in the state. Some DFS operators were forced to stop pick’em games in Florida earlier this month.
In February, the FGCC sent cease-and-desist letters to three DFS operators: Betr, Underdog Fantasy and PrizePicks. On March 1, the three closed their pick’em games in Florida. Only Underdog Fantasy still operates in Florida offering typical DFS contests.
The commission said the operators accepted illegal bets or ran illegal lotteries.
This wasn’t the first time the commission had sent cease-and-desist letters to the DFS operators. In September, all three companies received letters saying that “betting or wagering on the result of contests of skill, such as sports betting, including fantasy sports betting, is strictly prohibited and constitutes a felony offense unless such activity is otherwise exempted by statute.”
This legislation was a chance to do that.
