Seminole Tribe calls Florida card room sports betting challenge a 'straw man'
The Seminole Tribe of Florida says a federal lawsuit challenging its Class III contract — including the online sports betting privilege the Hard Rock owners struck with Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021 — has not legal basis and should be dismissed.
DeSantis and the powerful tribe — which holds exclusive rights in Florida to casino tables and slot machines outside of Miami-Dade and Broward counties — reached a new deal in April 2021 that gave Seminoles online sports betting rights as well as craps and craps games. Roulette.
In return for expanding gambling, the tribe guaranteed the state at least $2.5 billion over the first five years of the agreement. By 2023, the state will receive more than $6 billion in total tax benefits from the new agreement.
But the contract was quickly put on hold after a company called West Flagler Associates filed a lawsuit. Founded in Miami in the early 1950s and controlled by the Havenick family, West Flagler is a partnership that owns the Bonita Springs Poker Room and Miami's Magic City Casino. Earlier this year, West Flagler sold Magic City , which offers slot machines and poker, to Alabama's Poarch Band of Creek Indians for $600 million.
West-Flagler believes the U.S. Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Indian Affairs made a mistake when they approved the Seminole-DeSantis contract. The plaintiffs claimed that the agreement violated the federal Indian Gambling Regulation Act (IGRA) by allowing people to place remote sports bets over the Internet from out-of-state countries.
Washington District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich concurred with the November 2021 ruling. The decision voids the Seminole contract and takes offline the Hard Rock sports betting app that was launched a few weeks ago.
Court of Appeal reverses Dabney
The Seminoles appealed Frederick's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In June, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court unanimously overturned Friedrich's ruling. The intent is to believe that IGRA only regulates tribal gaming and does not prohibit tribes and states from “discussing other issues, including government activities” “outside Indian Territory.”
The Seminoles say because their online sports betting computer servers remain on sovereign land, gambling remains tribal territory. But West Flagler's attorneys claim Florida illegally authorizes commercial gambling. In 2018, Florida voters approved Amendment 3, giving voters the exclusive right to decide whether to allow gambling at commercial casinos in Florida.
The three justices countered that the federal government does not have the authority to decide whether tribal gambling can be promoted on nontribal lands.
"Whether it is legal for customers to bet on non-tribal lands in Florida may be a question for that state's courts, but that is not the subject of this lawsuit and is not our decision," the judge argued.
Case continues
Si Flagler isn't giving up the fight and is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for an en banc hearing. In order for a full trial to proceed, at least six of the 11 judges must agree to review the case. The appeals court in Washington, D.C., said the likelihood of that happening was high after it went two years without a full hearing.
Commenting on the en banc motion, Seminole attorneys responded this week, claiming West-Flagler's arguments were "straw men" and "wrong." The lawyers said IGRA "does not impose any conditions or restrictions on gambling in non-Indian territories" and that the federal law "does not affect the power of states to decide whether and under what conditions gambling is permitted on territories within India." its jurisdiction. "
Tribal lawyers say the 2018 referendum also doesn't matter because it doesn't apply to "casino gambling on tribal lands."
It could take weeks or even months for the D.C. Court of Appeals to rule on an en banc motion. This would put Floridians on pause on legal sports betting.
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Source: www.casino.org
