The Seminole Tribe seems to be getting used to its position as king of the Florida gaming world, confident they can overcome the remaining legal challenges to its online betting world.
Their victory also meant the tribe can launch new games such as craps, roulette, along with retail sports wagering in early December.
At its last meeting, the Florida Gaming Control Commission Executive Director Louis Trombetta received authority to file a notice of rule development, if necessary. Among the rules is a dispute-resolution procedure for gamblers who feel they got shafted.
“I’d like my team to really look into this right now,” Trombetta told the commissioners. “We might not even do it. I’ll have you an update on what we do by that November 17 meeting. But if you give me the authority, then if we do need to go down that road, I could get that notice filed and we wouldn’t have to wait.”
The 2021 compact declared disputes will come under the tribe’s gaming code with an appeal to the commission if a bettor is unhappy.
One dispute the commission won’t be able to deal with is the legal one, which challenges the compact, primarily its online sports betting provisions.
West Flagler and Associates have filed a slew of lawsuits in an effort to convince the courts the compact went against the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The parimutuels won round 1 before the district court only to see the appeals court override the district court. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene.
Still open is an action before the Florida Supreme Court. The main legal issue the cases revolve around has to do with online sports betting permitted to take place outside the reservation. The Hard Rock Bet mobile sports betting app launched on November 7, at least for customers who signed up before November 6.
“The Seminole Tribe is offering limited access to existing Florida customers to test its Hard Rock Bet platform,” a spokesman for the tribe said in a statement to Sports Handle.
Marcellus Osceola Jr., chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, said in a press release last week that “By working together, the Tribe, the state and the federal government achieved a historic legal victory.”
The tribe announced it would allow craps, roulette and sports betting, at its brick-and-mortar casinos beginning December 7, in spite of the lawsuits.
The parimutuels insist that the mobile sports-betting part of the deal disregards a 2018 constitutional amendment requiring voter approval of new gambling. Attorneys asked the court to impose an immediate suspension of sports betting until the issue is resolved.
“This exigency has been created by the launch of the Seminole Tribe’s mobile betting application on November 7, 2023, without prior warning,” the attorneys wrote in a 15-page motion.
The Supreme Court does not expect to decide on the challenge until next year.
“In the meantime, absent an expedited ruling on petitioners’ … request, the tribe will apparently continue with its off-reservation sports betting operations in contravention of the Florida Constitution … potentially raking in millions of dollars in sports bets that this court may eventually find were authorized in contravention of the Florida Constitution and derogation of the people’s right to decide on the expansion of casino gambling,” the companies’ attorneys wrote.
The motion was the latest move in two years of legal wrangling about the gambling deal, which Governor Ron DeSantis and Osceola Jr. signed in 2021. The deal, known as a compact, also allowed the Seminoles to add craps and roulette to their Florida casinos and add three casinos on tribal property in Broward County.
In exchange, the Seminoles agreed to pay the state at least $2.5 billion over the first five years and possibly billions of dollars more over the course of the pact, which was ratified by lawmakers.
The focus of the litigation has been on part of the deal aimed at allowing gamblers to place mobile sports wagers anywhere in the state, with bets handled by computer servers on tribal property. The deal said bets “using a mobile app or other electronic device, shall be deemed to be exclusively conducted by the tribe.”
