After compact negotiations with the Seminole Tribe of Florida failed, tribal officials informed Governor Ron DeSantis that it will stop making its monthly payments of $19.5 million, or $320.7 million annually, for exclusive rights to offer certain card games, effective May 22. The revenue was not included in the state’s $91.1. To date, the tribe has paid more than $2.3 billion to the state, according to state records.
Recently re-elected Tribal Council Chairman Marcellus Osceola Jr. wrote, “The tribe believes that the compact and related legislation developed with the Senate leadership would have resolved this issue and been mutually beneficial to the state and the tribe.” Osceola said he supports DeSantis’ decision to review the issues and resume discussions this summer. “In the meantime, the tribe will follow its agreement with the state and suspend its revenue share payments until the illegal banked card game issue is resolved,” Osceola wrote.
The Seminoles claim the banked card games offered at horse and dog tracks and jai alai frontons infringe on the tribe’s exclusive rights to offer those games. Due to U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle’s ruling that designated player games offered at parimutuels violated a 2010 agreement giving the Seminoles exclusive rights to offer blackjack and other banked games, the tribe has not been required to make monthly payments since March 31. However, the tribe continued to make the payments.
Tribal Attorney Barry Richard said ending the payments is not connected to the compact; it’s because of the parimutuels’ violation of the tribe’s exclusive right to offer banked card games. “The state doesn’t have to negotiate a new compact. They just have to stop the infringements. Parimutuels are blatant, even advertising these card games. Actually, the state stopped all enforcement efforts. And as you know, the session ended without the legislature doing anything. There was a negotiation that resulted in some agreement in principle between the tribe and the Senate but nothing was completed,” Richard said.
As in recent years, a comprehensive gambling bill failed in the legislature. A deal negotiated by upcoming Senate President Wilton Simpson would have included a renewed revenue sharing agreement with the Seminoles, among other provisions.
Last year, former Governor Rick Scott negotiated an agreement with the tribe, in which the tribe agreed it would continue making its monthly payments to the state through the end of the current legislative session. Osceola said the tribe could have stopped all revenue sharing payments years ago but continued making payments to give the state time to take “aggressive enforcement action” to shut down the designated player games. “Unfortunately, there has not been aggressive enforcement action against those games, which have expanded” since Hinkle’s ruling, Osceola wrote.
Richard said what happens next is “the state’s call. But if the state stops the infringement, then the tribe is obligated to resume payments.”
