The Florida Supreme Court has turned down a motion by pari-mutuel companies to block the Seminole Tribe’s plan to restart its mobile sports-betting operations pending the outcome of ongoing litigation over the state’s 2021 gambling compact.
The high court rejected the motion by West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp. in a short announcement on Nov. 17. The justices offered no explanation for denying the request to immediately suspend the sports-betting provisions of the state law underlying the gambling compact.
The court’s denial of the motion comes in the wake of the Seminole Tribe announcing that it would relaunch its sports-betting app, allowing mobile sports wagers statewide. The tribe also said it would expand gaming at several casinos, beginning in December, to include craps, roulette and sports betting.
The pari-mutuels’ lawsuits are now under consideration by both the U.S. Supreme Court and the state Supreme Court.
“I’ve said all along that West Flagler Associates has no chance of winning, so the court’s refusal came as no surprise,” Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, said in an email to the Florida Record. “I think the best that WFA can hope for at this point is that the court sends the case down to the Leon County Circuit Court – that would at least delay the inevitable. In the meantime, I fully expect the Seminoles to be able to go forward with their plans.”
The pari-mutuels said in their state Supreme Court motion to suspend sport betting that the tribe’s decision to launch its app was not mentioned previously and came as a surprise.
“... The widespread understanding was that the references to sports betting were in-person sports betting, which is not the subject of the instant petition,” the motion states. “... The tribe has sought to surprise the petitioners and this court by presenting a ‘fait accompli’ on Nov. 7. It has indeed taken live bets as of today.”
The petition the pari-mutuels filed with the state Supreme Court on Sept. 25 contends that Gov. Ron DeSantis and other respondents in the case overreached on their constitutional authority by expanding casino gambling in Florida without first getting citizen approval.
In the federal lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court recently vacated an administrative stay Chief Justice John Roberts had placed on Florida sports betting. The pari-mutuels had asked the federal court to block the gaming deal, contending that it gave the tribe an illegal monopoly over sports betting.
The Florida sports compact was approved in 2021 and has faced litigation ever since. The compact with the Seminole tribe allowed expanded gaming at tribal casinos as well as an increase in the number of casinos, with the state’s share of earnings set at more than $2.5 billion over the first five years of the compact’s operation.
The pari-mutuels also argue that the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act bars the use of the internet to send payments from Florida jurisdictions where residents are using the sports-gaming app to tribal lands where the bets are recorded.