Florida Bill Would Solidify Seminole Control Of Gambling

Florida lawmakers are moving to lock down all of the state’s online gambling into the hands of one operator. Bill HB591, currently before the state legislature, would make illegal any gambling taking place in the state that is not being offered by the Seminole tribe.

The bill was recently filed before the state house. It has been assigned to a committee for further discussion. Those discussions will begin when the Florida legislature resumes sitting in March of next year.

Currently, all legal and regulated gambling in the state is conducted through a compact between the government and the Seminole Tribe. For instance, access to all legal online sports betting in Florida is provided through the Seminole’s Hard Rock Bet platform.

In 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reached an agreement with the Seminole Tribe, giving the tribe exclusive rights to offer online sports betting across the state. Bets are routed through servers located on tribal land, which is known in the industry as a hub-and-spoke system.

No other sports betting operator is permitted to offer a product in the state. If Bill HB591 is passed into law, it would make it a crime for any rival operator to attempt to set up shop in the Sunshine State.

Section 19 of the bill makes it clear that any unregulated gambling in the state, or any attempt by another city or county in the state to set up or enter into agreements to offer gambling with any organization other than the Seminole tribe, will be considered criminal activity.

“No county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state shall enact or enforce any ordinance or local rule relating to gaming, gambling, lotteries, or any activities described in this chapter, except as otherwise expressly provided by the State Constitution, general law, or special law,” the bill reads.

Operators found to be engaging in those activities could face a third-degree felony conviction. Any employees of an illegal gambling operation would be subject to lesser charges if it were their first offense.

Other sports betting elements are also part of Bill HB591

Along with reaffirming the Seminole tribe’s monopoly on sports betting in the state, Bill HB591 also seeks to deal with any potential match fixing that might take place. This has certainly become a hot-button issue with recent gambling scandals in the NBA and MLB, as well as in college sports.

The language in Bill HB591 states that “any participant or prospective participant in any professional or amateur game … who in any way solicits, receives or accepts, or agrees to receive or accept, or who conspires to receive or accept, any bribe, money, goods, present, reward or any valuable thing whatsoever, or any promise, contract or agreement whatsoever, with intent to lose or cause to be lost any game, contest, match, race or sport, or to limit his, her, their or any person’s or any team’s margin of victory in any game, contest, match, race or sport, or to fix or throw any game, contest, match, race or sport, shall be guilty of a felony of the third degree.”

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