Attorneys for Creek Entertainment/Gretna, a small north Florida racetrack, recently filed a motion requesting the Florida Supreme Court to rehear arguments. Last month the court unanimously ruled against the track, which claimed it could install slot machines because voters in Gadsden County approved them in a referendum. Voters in Brevard, Duval, Hamilton, Lee, Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Washington counties also have approved slots.
The high court upheld a decision by the 1st District Court of Appeal, agreeing with state gambling regulators who denied the track a slots permit. Justice Charles Canady wrote “nothing in state gambling law grants any authority to regulate slot machine gaming to any county.”
In oral arguments last June, an attorney for the racetrack, part-owner Marc Dunbar, said it was the intention of the legislature to allow an expansion of slot machines in the state, and that under state law, counties were empowered to decide whether to allow slots.
Creek Entertainment/Gretna is operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
