Florida Casino Opposition Says State and Seminoles Can’t ‘Have it Both Ways’

A grouping inwards Sunshine State opposed to more casinos and play is speech production out against expanded tribal gaming inwards the state. “No Casinos inward Florida” is opposing the state’s wishes to appropriate sports bets to be wagered from anyplace indoors the country’s third to the highest degree populated state.

A political organisation that helped straits Amendment 3 during the Nov 2018 election, “No Casinos” is now fighting a unexampled Class III gaming stocky that expands the Seminole Tribe’s power to bid tabular array games at its VI tribal casinos on its monarch lands and to operate in the flesh(p) and online sports betting.

The stocky was in agreement(p) to inward April 2021 past Governor Bokkos DeSantis (R) and the Seminole Tribe.

Amendment 3, however, prohibits tell lawmakers from legalizing commercial message casino gambling. The Everglade State Constitution now requires that any sweat to expand gambling in the res publica past path of unexampled non-tribal casinos be approved by voters through a statewide referendum.

The online sports betting element is what led to legal challenges.

A causa was filed inwards July 2021 past 2 racinos against the Department of the Interior for approbative the Seminole compact, as required below the federal American Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).

Last November, US District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich agreed with the plaintiffs, Magic City Casino and Bonita Springs Poker Room, that the DOI erred in signing off on the compact. Friedrich ruled that the 2021 Seminole stocky violates IGRA as the statute applies only when to gaming on Indian lands.

Briefs Filed Ahead of Oral Arguments

The Seminoles halted their gaming enlargement followers Friedrich’s ruling. The federation of tribes so appealed the instance to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In expectancy of viva arguments, parties are filing Jockey shorts inward reenforcement of, or against, the Seminole compact. The federation of tribes has gained much backing, with the DOI and State of FL each filing briefs asking the appeals judicature to tump over Friedrich’s opinion.

The Interior Department and Sunshine State Attorney General Ashley Helen Newington Wills indicate that IGRA requires that Class III gaming read localize on a tribe’s crowned head land, but does non boundary remote wagering.

The FL Legislature passed a say natural law at the same clip DeSantis signed the Seminole thick that allows sports bets to be wagered from anyplace in the country over the internet, so long as the wager goes to a sportsbook information processing system server housed on Seminole land.

The individual players’ accounts, balances, winnings, and losses are maintained, tracked, and accounted for on servers on the tribe’s Native American lands. The computation of odds, winnings, losses, and defrayment are all controlled past software program on servers on the tribe’s Amerindic lands,” the folk argued inward its brief.

The folk added that disputes 'tween patrons and oddsmakers are to be resolved only on the tribe’s American Indian lands.

Unsolicited Brief

Though “No Casinos” isn’t a company to the Seminole lawsuit, the aggroup says it testament nonetheless register a legal brief with its opinions on the tribal gaming controversy. Speaking with the Florida Phoenix this week, “No Casinos” spokesperson John Lackland Sowinski said the province and Seminoles are in the wrongfulness with their in style(p) compact.

“You can’t have got it both ways. You can’t get it both live relieve from Amendment 3 and make it cancelled tribal lands,” Sowinski opined. “Amendment 3 affects everything that takes localize within the state.

“It’s an intellectually dishonorable argument. It is an parameter that is an affront to the people of Florida who have the rightfulness in their organisation to hold what forms of gambling subsist outdoors of tribal lands,” he concluded.