An important legal battle between the Seminole Tribe of Florida and other Florida gambling-industry stakeholders has tipped back in favor of the Seminole Tribe's interests with an appellate reversal issued this week by a District Columbia Court of Appeals. The DC court reversed a lower-court ruling that had found the Seminole Tribe and its Hard Rock casinos in Florida in violation of the US's Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) when it launched an online sports-betting app available to Florida residents in November 2021.
The online-betting site accepted real-money wagering only briefly before legal challenges and an initial court ruling forced the suspension of operations. Initially, a federal judge ruled that both the Seminole Traibe and the Florida legislature had violated the four-decades-old IGRA by reaching a massive compact for live and online sports betting that "deemed" the wagering to be occurring on tribal lands, no matter where the wager was placed.
That "fiction", as described by the case's initial judge, kept the Hard Rock online site off for over a year and a half, but even with the favorable ruling, more legal challenges are expected. The initial lawsuit against the tribal nation and the state of Florida was filed in July 2021 by West Flagler Associates, which operates Bonita Springs Poker Room and Magic City Casino near Miami. West Flagler protested not only the apparent IGRA violation, but the nature of the "hub and spoke" compact with Florida that gave the Seminole Tribe virtual exclusivity for offering sports wagering in the state.
The Seminole Tribe and Florida, under the auspices of Governor Ron DeSantis, took their appeal to the DC court because the federal Department of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was also named as a defendant in the West Flagler and other lawsuits. The DOI allowed the Seminole-Florida compact to take effect without actually offering a ruling on the IGRA matter.
The legal battle ultimately includes control over all of online gambling in Florida, though the possibility of regulated online poker in the state was pulled from the compact before it was passed earlier in 2021. Nevertheless, all other online-gambling forms would either be offered by the Seminoles' Hard Rock brands or would have to be licensed through them, which is another reason behind the ongoing opposition, based on monopoly arguments.
The Seminole-Florida pact remains a target of anti-gambling forces as well, since the deal also authorized two new Seminole casinos in South Florida, including one near Miami. “Today’s decision will not be the final word on this issue,’’ said John Sowinski, spokesperson for No Casinos, one of the groups against the compact.
