Florida Seminoles to undertake casino gaming expansion in December

After a tough legal battle in the courts, the Seminole tribe will finally be able to undertake, starting next December 7, the expansion of several gambling systems, specifically dice and roulette, in addition to sports betting.

“This is a historic milestone that immediately puts Florida in the same league as the world's top gaming destinations,” said Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming and president of Seminole-owned Hard Rock International.

The controversial pact signed in 2021 by the state authorizes the Seminole tribe, owner of that famous casino and hotel near Miami, to handle sports betting, and would add a minimum of 2.5 billion dollars to state coffers in the next five years.
The owners of two competing betting companies had positioned themselves against this pact: Magic Casino, in Miami-Dade County, and Bonita Springs Poker Room, in the southwest of the state, arguing that the agreement, if carried out, . , would cause a "significant and potentially devastating impact" on its operations.

The organization No Casinos.org, opposed to the proliferation of casinos in Florida, had also joined this legal challenge.
For No Casinos.org, this agreement opens the door to "the largest" expansion of gambling in Florida history, "turning every mobile phone into a slot machine" and "forever changing the atmosphere of the state, so that gambling becomes as ubiquitous as palm trees.

But already on September 12, a US appeals court refused to hear the challenge of the two litigating companies, and the appeal to the Florida Supreme Court was also ineffective.

 "The Seminole Tribe thanks the State of Florida, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Justice for upholding our Compact," said Marcellus Osceola Jr., chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.   "By working together, the Tribe, the State and the federal government achieved a historic legal victory," he added, according to local channel NBC6.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Republican, and Osceola Jr. signed a 30-year gaming agreement in 2021 that included giving the tribe control of sports betting.

Although in 2021 Judge Dabney Friedrich ruled in a Washington court against the new sports betting pact, that decision was overturned by a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the same one that denied the request to challenge the two aforementioned competing companies of the Seminoles. EFE