The Seminole Tribe of Florida announced Saturday it is “temporarily suspending” sports betting in Florida. The decision comes after the Seminoles were denied an emergency request for a stay pending appeal Friday by a three-judge panel.
With legal sports betting in a holding pattern, Daniel Wallach, a nationally known sports betting expert who has a law practice in Hallandale Beach, said it could be more than a year before the next legal sports bet is placed in Florida.
“It’s my view the next legal online sports bet will be placed no sooner than 2023,” Wallach said, “because the Florida Legislature did not do its due diligence in vetting the compact for legal compliance with IGRA (Indian Gaming Regulatory Act).”
Wallach said there are three main avenues for sports betting to return: the Seminoles winning an appeal through the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; a new agreement, or compact, between the Seminoles and state of Florida that allows in-person sports betting but not online sports betting; having a statewide referendum placed on Florida’s Nov. 2022 ballot.
Wallach said a decision on the appeal from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals might take between six months and a year. And he said a new agreement, or compact, wouldn’t give the Seminoles access to online betting, which is the most lucrative aspect of sports betting.
Seminoles spokesman Gary Bitner issued a statement Saturday that said, “As a result of yesterday’s Appeals Court decision denying a temporary stay of the District Court’s decision on the 2021 Compact, Hard Rock Sportsbook will temporarily suspend operations of its mobile app in Florida. Account balances for all current players will be refunded as requested.
“Despite the decision, the Seminole Tribe looks forward to working with the State of Florida and the U.S. Department of Justice to aggressively defend the validity of the 2021 Compact before the Appeals Court, which has yet to rule on the merits of the 2021 Compact.
“The Seminole Tribe of Florida, the State of Florida and the United States have all taken the position that the 2021 Compact is legal.”
The agreement between the Seminoles and Florida was challenged in court by two Miami-based groups — West Flagler Associates and No Casinos.
Late last month judge Dabney Friedrich ruled the agreement, or compact, between the Seminoles and the state of Florida is invalid, which made sports betting illegal. The Seminoles were hoping to use a “hub and spoke” system to book bets, which meant bets could be accepted from “spokes” anywhere in the state using the Hard Rock Sportsbook app, and the bets would be accepted at the “hub,” which is a server located on tribal grounds.
Friedrich ruled such a setup violates IGRA, which requires such bets to be made on tribal land. The Seminoles argued because the server is on tribal land, the bets are technically accepted on tribal land.
Friedrich called that “fiction.”
Despite Friedrich’s order the Seminoles kept their app open for bets until Saturday morning, roughly two weeks after the agreement, or compact, was ruled invalid.
A message on the app said all active bets for events starting before 11 a.m. Saturday would run and settle as normal. It said all active bets for events starting on or after 11 a.m. will be voided and initial bet amounts returned to the account holder’s app wallet. The same process applies for all futures bets.
The message said the app will remain active for withdrawals.
The suspension of sports betting means the Seminoles miss out on some of the lucrative opportunities that come with college football bowl games and the NFL playoffs.
It also meant Florida residents couldn’t legally bet on Saturday’s college football conference championship games via the Hard Rock Sportsbook app, including the powerhouse Southeastern Conference title game between No. 1 Georgia and No. 3 Alabama.
In the worst-case scenario for the Seminoles, they’d miss out on the Super Bowl, perhaps the biggest single sports betting opportunity of the calendar year.
Friedrich, in her Nov. 20 order, said a new agreement could be reached between the Seminole tribe and Florida. However, any new agreement couldn’t grant the Seminoles online sports betting, only in-person sports betting.
The agreement between the Seminoles and Florida also called for the Seminoles to have craps and roulette, and to expand their operation. Now none of that can happen until a new agreement is reached.
“The Seminoles and the Governor overplayed their hand here,” Wallach said. “There was a compact that could have passed legal muster, which would have provided the tribe with craps, roulette, on-reservations sports books, and up to four new casinos. That was all there for the taking.
“But they got greedy and wanted to use the federal vehicle of a compact to extract for themselves an off-reservation monopoly statewide.”
