In Florida, the political organization No Casinos is opposing the Seminole Tribe’s 5-year, $2.5 billion gambling compact, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in April 2021.
The compact allows the tribe to offer table games at its six casinos on sovereign lands, and to operate in-person and online sports betting. No Casinos in November 2018 helped pass Amendment 3, which gives voters, not state lawmakers, exclusive rights to legalize new commercial casino gambling.
The legal challenges are based on the compact’s online sports betting provision. Two racinos filed suit in July 2021 against the U.S. Department of the Interior for approving the Seminole compact, as required under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA). Last November, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich agreed with the racino plaintiffs, Magic City Casino in Miami and Bonita Springs Poker Room, that the Interior Department should not have signed off on the compact. Friedrich ruled the compact violates IGRA, since it applies only to gaming on Indian lands. Under the compact, the tribe would take sports betting wagers from anywhere in the state, but bets would be processed by servers on the Seminole reservation.
Following Friedrich’s ruling, the tribe stopped sports betting activities and appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Recently, several parties have filed briefs for or against the compact. The Interior Department and the state of Florida both have filed briefs asking the appeals court to overturn Friedrich’s opinion.
No Casinos isn’t a party to the Seminole lawsuit, but the group said it will nonetheless file an amicus brief on behalf of state voters who supported Amendment 3. The group’s spokesman, John Sowinski, said its brief will argue the state and tribe should not be allowed to expand gambling without a statewide referendum.
Sowinski said, “You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have it both ways and be exempt from Amendment 3 and have it be off tribal lands, because Amendment 3 affects everything that takes place within the state. It’s an intellectually dishonest argument. It is an argument that is an affront to the people of Florida who have the right in their constitution to control what forms of gambling exist outside of tribal lands.”
In its amicus brief, the state of Florida said, “The district court’s interpretation of IGRA effectively erects a wall around tribal lands and prevents tribes from keeping pace with online advancements in the gaming industry. Contrary to the district court’s interpretation, nothing in IGRA prevents a state and a tribe from agreeing to allow a tribal casino located on Indian lands to accept wagers from players physically located elsewhere within the state when placement of the wagers is permitted under state law and properly included in a compact.”
Litigators in Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office said in their brief IGRA allows compacts to control operations that don’t happen in tribal lands—for example, using a smartphone to place a bet—if they’re “directly related to the operation of gaming” on those lands.
The brief continues, “There is no language limiting the scope of these provisions to activities occurring on Indian lands or preventing the shifting of regulatory jurisdiction over activities occurring outside Indian lands, especially when such a shift is expressly authorized and implemented by state law.”
The Seminoles argue the trial judge failed to observe the legal principle that gambling compacts must “be construed liberally in favor of the Indians” because gambling is the key to the tribe’s financial health and ability to run its government and provide services to members and other people who come onto tribal land.
