Florida: Casinos challenge DeSantis’ $2.5 billion sports betting deal

Florida: Casinos challenge DeSantis’ $2.5 billion sports betting deal

Article brief provided by Bloomberg Law
  • Alex Ebert, Bloomberg Law
September 26, 2023 3:51 PM

The future of mobile sports betting in America’s third-largest state is on the line after Florida casinos challenged a $2.5 billion dollar deal Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) struck with a Native American tribe.

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DeSantis and the state Legislature violated the state constitution by adopting a 2021 pact allowing the Seminole Tribe of Florida to hold “off-reservation” betting through a mobile sports-betting book and app, brick-and-mortar casinos alleged in a petition filed in the Florida Supreme Court Monday. The casinos claim the state constitution would have to be changed to allow expanded tribal gaming beyond tribal lands.

“The Governor and Legislature have attempted to avoid the Florida Constitution’s mandate by having the 2021 Compact and the Implementing Law ‘deem’ online bets placed anywhere in the state to have occurred ‘exclusively’ on tribal lands where the bets are received—a transparent artifice,” the complaint said.