A new tribal-state gambling compact is in the making, which will give Seminole Tribe of Florida, the United States’ largest tribal gaming operators, exclusive control over overall sports betting. The location of betting includes statewide, and in the case of mobile devices, the bettor’s location is regardless. Even for jai-alai, facilities and licensed race tracks located beyond the tribal borders are also included.
The aforesaid compact is scheduled for approval in the next week’s special session of the Florida Legislature.
The compact flouts the Federal Law, 1988, that permits Indian tribes and states to enter into a compact for gaming activities listed in Class III-like sports betting. The federal law was known as Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, also known as IGRA. The act stated that any state-tribal authorized gaming activities should occur only on Indian lands. However, the new compact extensively authorizes off tribal lands like every online bet in Florida and all sports wagers at licensed pari-mutuel facilities.
A critical component of this compact is presumably falsely interpreted by the State’s negotiators. They assumed that the location of the bettor is out of context as long as the computer server that is processing the bet is located on the trivial land. Here, the Seminole Tribe will constitute a limit and dictate that a specified type of wagers can restrictively be placed on a respective casino. The same is already practiced in New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Michigan.
Another surprising factor carried by the new tribal-state gambling compact is that this will give the tribe a monopoly overall sports betting taking place in Florida for the next 30 years – precisely, the tribe will be holding the flagship alone till 2051.