The Seminole Tribe of Florida recently filed a motion for a summary judgment, asking U.S. Judge Robert Hinkle to declare that it may continue to offer banked card games, including blackjack, at five of its seven casinos for 15 more years, and to force the state to negotiate. Meanwhile, Governor Rick Scott and the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation filed a motion asking the judge to rule against the tribe.
At the heart of the matter is a provision in the Seminoles’ gaming compact giving them exclusive rights to operate the banked card games until 2030.
In exchange for exclusivity, the tribe promised to pay the state a minimum of $1 billion over five years. That agreement expired on July 31. The compact allowed the Seminoles a 90-day grace period to continue operating the banked card games. “Despite the promises it made in the compact, within a year of its approval, the state began permitting others to conduct various types of banked card games without explanation or justification,” the tribe’s attorneys, Barry Richard and Joseph Webster, wrote in the latest 31-page motion.
After mediation failed, the tribe sued the state, alleging that Florida officials had failed to negotiate in “good faith” on a new deal, as required by the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
Tribal lawyers further claimed the state “refused to participate in any negotiations regarding such games unless they were part of a renegotiation of the entire compact. It also demanded a substantial increase in the state’s revenue share as a condition of such an amended compact without specifying any new benefits for the tribe that would justify the increase sought.”
While the lawsuits were pending, Scott and Seminole Chairman James Billie signed a proposed 20-year compact last December, in which the tribe agreed to pay the state $3 billion over seven years in exchange for adding craps and roulette. Lawmakers failed to authorize the proposed compact during the legislative session that ended in March. Attorneys for the tribe stated the legislature “could have enacted an amended version and submitted it to the tribe” or reached out to the tribe to propose amendments to the plan signed by Scott. “It did neither,” they said.
State’s attorneys alleged in their motion that the “tribe’s current suit is an improper attempt to make an end-run around the bargained-for expiration of the tribe’s authorization to conduct banking or banked card games.” They wrote, “When the 2010 compact was being negotiated, the CEO of the tribe’s gaming operations proposed the five-year limitation on the tribe’s authorization to conduct banked card games because the state legislature was unwilling to approve a 20-year authorization. The tribe persuaded the state to authorize banked card games by proposing to include in the 20-year compact a five-year limitation on the tribe’s authorization to conduct banked card games.”
The state rejected the Seminoles’ argument that the five-year card deal was intended to be renewed for the remainder of the compact if the games were successful.
The state’s lawyers wrote “it is undisputed” that the state legislature has not authorized the tribe to conduct banked card games, despite the “tribe’s suggestion that the 2010 compact provided the state with the opportunity” to extend the banked card games. “Neither the 2010 compact nor the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act provides the tribe with a right to sue the state under these circumstances to secure a different deal than the one it negotiated in 2010. Therefore, the state is entitled judgment as a matter of law on the tribe’s claim for violation of IGRA’s good-faith negotiation requirement.”
