Florida Online Sports Betting Rejected by Federal Judge
Florida Online Sports Betting Rejected by Federal Judge
(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge has struck down a gaming compact that allowed the Seminole Tribe of Florida to offer online sports betting, effectively halting the practice in the state, one of the largest U.S. markets for the growing industry.
The court ruled that the U.S. Interior Secretary’s August decision to allow the practice -- by approving a compact between the Tribe and the state of Florida -- violated provisions of the Indian Gaming Regulation Act, which requires that bettors be physically located on tribal lands.
The case was brought by West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp., which own brick-and-mortar casinos in Florida.
The gaming compact had essentially handed the Tribe a monopoly on online sports gambling in the Sunshine State. It also allowed tribal casinos -- including the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino near Fort Lauderdale and another in Tampa -- to expand their offering of Las Vegas-style games.
But it prompted major questions about what it meant to gamble on tribal lands in the Internet age. In essence, the arrangement would have allowed online sports gambling to take place anywhere in the state as long as it was piped through servers that were physically located on Seminole lands.
“This Court cannot accept that fiction,” Judge Dabney Friedrich wrote in the Nov. 22 order. “When a federal statute authorizes an activity only at specific locations, parties may not evade that limitation by ‘deeming’ their activity to occur where it, as a factual matter, does not.”
According to a Florida constitutional amendment, gaming activities in the state can only be expanded via a voter approval in a referendum. Such a referendum may now be the path forward if the industry is intent on bringing sports gambling to Florida. Separately, the state and the Tribe may also agree on a new compact that allows for online gaming “solely on Indian lands,” according to the opinion.
“This decision does not foreclose other avenues for authorizing online sports betting in Florida,” Judge Friedrich wrote.
The case is West Flagler Associates v Deb Haaland, 1:21-cv-02192, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Washington)
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