Gaming deal ‘is close,’ governor and Senate president tell parimutuel leaders
HASSEE
Florida legislators are “getting close” to a new gambling deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Senate President Wilton Simpson told 20 top officials of Florida’s casinos, poker rooms, horse tracks and jai-alai facilities on Thursday, according to some of the men in attendance at the closeddoor meeting in the Capitol.
Simpson, DeSantis and House Speaker Chris Sprowls, all Republicans, have been in behind-thescenes talks with the Tribe over a new gambling compact for several months as part of an ambitious plan to draft a proposal this legislative session.
“We will probably know one way or the other within the next week or so whether we have a path to agreement,” DeSantis told reporters after the meeting with the pari-mutuel leaders.
For more than a decade, legislators have been asked to update the state’s gaming laws, authorize new games for the industry and allow wealthy hotel owners to open a casino. But the bills never pass, often dragged down by their own weight.
“It seems to be the third rail of the Legislature,’’ said Sprowls, from Palm Harbor. In his six years in state House, no gaming bill has ever passed, he said, because there are so many interlocking parts involving competing interests.
“The issue with gaming is wildly complex,’’ Sprowls said. He said he will listen this year but emphasized this is a priority for Simpson, a Pasco County egg farmer who is widely expected to run for agriculture commissioner in 2022.
The scope of the Senateled
effort has been kept quiet, but several sources with knowledge of the negotiations say that a new agreement with the Seminole Tribe of Florida would give the Tribe and its seven casinos the ability to operate online sports betting in exchange for resuming annual revenue payments to the state.
The Tribe stopped paying the state $350 million in annual revenue sharing after former Gov. Rick Scott refused to crack down on pari-mutuels operating designatedplayer games, a hybrid between blackjack and poker, where the “bank” is supposed to revolve among the players. A court said that because the state had allowed the Tribe’s competitors to operate the games, that violated their gaming compact, which called for the state giving the Tribe the exclusive ability to offer blackjack. The Tribe said it would not comment on the negotiations.
The proposal under consideration by the Senate would also allow real estate mogul Jeff Soffer to transfer a gaming permit from Broward County to Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau Hotel and Resort to allow him to achieve his long-sought goal of opening a destination casino, according to several sources familiar with the negotiations.
The entities with representatives at the meeting with DeSantis and Simpson were: Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, the Sanford-Orlando Kennel Club, Hialeah Park, Ebro Poker Room in Ebro, Calder Casino in Miami Gardens, Wind Creek in Gretna, Fort Pierce Jai-Alai, Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach, Isle Casino in Pompano
Beach, Tampa Bay Downs in Tampa, Derby Lane in St. Petersburg, NaplesFort Myers Greyhound Track in Bonita Springs, Magic City Casino in Miami, the Big Easy Casino in Hallandale Beach, and Best Bet of Jacksonville.