The lawsuit filed Monday asserts that the Seminole casinos have the right to keep its blackjack tables because Florida regulators violated the compact with the tribe by allowing South Florida race tracks to offer electronic versions of the card games.
Advertisement
While a tribe spokesman said in a statement the Seminoles are making “significant progress” toward negotiating a new gaming agreement with the state, the tribe has also filed a lawsuit. “The tribe believes that a legislative solution would be in the best interest of the state and the tribe”. Thus, it says, it is entitled under the compact to continue to operate banking or banked card games, and to begin offering banking or banked card games at its Brighton and Big Cypress gaming facilities.
Any agreement would have to include a few perks for the state’s pari-mutuel industry in order to get the political support necessary for a bill authorizing the compact to pass. But loading too many elements into the legislation could kill it. The tribe then filed the federal lawsuit to ensure that no harm was to come to the casino.
Despite ongoing talks, the lawsuit alleges the state is not negotiated in good faith because it has demanded modifications to the remaining provisions of the compact “to substantially increase the Tribe’s payments to the State…without a proportionate increase in economic benefit to the Tribe”.
Five years ago, Florida reached a deal with the tribe, which gave it the right to operate blackjack tables at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa and in south Florida. In a banked game, the player is gambling with the casino, or the dealer, instead of another player. Last year, the tribe contributed $248.5 million to the state’s general fund, according to records, with $7 million of that going to local governments. Meanwhile, the agreement from 2010 generated a billion dollars for the state of Florida. The parties entered into a mediation process, which ultimately proved unsuccessful. The tribe is asking the court to declare it has the right to conduct banked card games for the full term of the company at all seven of its gaming locations, that the state failed to negotiate.
“When it comes to gambling, you can’t expand it – even by a little – without somebody, someday using it as an excuse to expand gambling even more”, Sowinski said.
The tribe has previously said it will ignore the October deadline and not only continue operating the games but also continue sending revenue-sharing payments to the state.
“There has been a good partnership between the state and the tribe over the years”, he said.
Advertisement
The tribe is supposed to remove the tables this week.
