The proposal to alter Florida’s gambling landscape, at this stage, is like the climactic moment in the movie Apollo 13. As the troubled spacecraft returns to Earth, Walter Cronkite says: “Will the heat shield hold? Will the command module survive the intense heat of re-entry? This is the critical moment.”
As the Florida Legislature, which began its session in January this year, approaches its closing March 11 splashdown, there are all kinds of wobbling elements in a proposed seven-year, $3 billion agreement with the Seminole Tribe of Florida:
Legislators outside of South Florida want gambling, too. Senator Joe Negron, R-Stuart, has added an amendment that would allow the six counties that approved referenda, years ago, to also have slots. But the compact with the Seminoles calls for slot exclusivity everywhere other than South Florida. (Tampa is really their cash cow.) If the revised bill clears, then the Seminoles will ask for a decrease in future payments.
Adding slots as Negron suggests is without precedent. It took a statewide referendum in 2004 – which barely passed, with 50.8 percent – then separate county votes, which faced opposition campaigns, for slots to be approved in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. That’s much more rigorous than the process that was followed for Negron’s batch of six counties: the individual county referenda were understood at the time to be non-binding votes.
Other legislators outside of South Florida don’t want gambling. They say the compact, with allows for craps and roulette at Seminole casinos, would continue to hurt the state’s family-friendly image. The Seminoles want the additional games to attract more international guests to the hotels in Tampa and Hollywood, even though gambling revenues from such guests are minimal. Craps and roulette are projected to earn $40 million annually, a very small fraction of the tribe’s $2.4 billion take statewide. But it’s just enough fuel for those who frame the compact as an “expansion.”
The legislature doesn’t care about helping Governor Rick Scott. In 2008, Scott funded his own campaign and ousted the party’s favorite in the Republican primary, and has always struggled to work and play well with others. For example, on December 7 he announced he and the tribe had reached a compact agreement, although just hours earlier, Senate President Andy Gardiner was quoted as saying he didn’t think the governor and the tribe were at all close to agreeing on a compact. C-O-M-M-U-N-I-C-A-T-I-O-N? There aren’t many legislators who would vote for the compact strictly as a favor to Scott.
Legislators are flipping too many switches, pushing too many buttons. Interests from racinos, the horse racing industry, and other players in Florida have somehow convinced some legislators that the compact and all other tweaks to the state’s gambling landscape must be linked. That argument is wrong. The legislature could approve just the compact, and work out later the pari-mutuel questions, such as whether to allow the decoupling of racing and casinos, how much to reduce slot taxes, and details of blackjack at pari-mutuels.
So, to return to Apollo 13, another thought: This gambling thing? It’s not rocket science.
Get daily gambling news at Nick Sortal’s site, SouthFloridaGambling.com.
