Florida Lawmakers Negotiating with Seminole Tribe

Since the gambling agreement between the Florida government and Seminole Indian tribe expired five years ago, the two sides have been recently negotiating on regulating the key gambling provision.

It looks like those meetings have not been assembled in vain…

…because both Florida lawmakers, and Seminole tribe representatives are apparently close to concluding a new compact that will include expansion provisions.

The Old Compact

As it was stated in the old compact that was put into effect back in 2010, there was a deal between the Seminole tribe and the Florida government concerning revenue sharing.

Thanks to this gambling agreement, hundreds of millions of dollars went to Florida’s state wallet…

…but the deal ultimately came to its expiration date.

Although it had to be renewed in 2015, Rick Scott, who was a Florida Governor back then, convinced the Seminole tribe to continue the agreement under the same .

Details on the New Contract

But, that agreement will also expire soon, at the end of the month actually, so Florida officials had to do something about it.

Why?

Because the state could lose up to $350 million this year if the new deal is not assembled…

…and the Senate already stripped the Seminole tribe’s annual payment from the budget in order to avoid a major financial shortfall in case they don’t come to an agreement.

Florida lawmakers and the representative of the Seminole tribe spent the whole of the last week in efforts to come to a mutual agreement regarding this issue.

The main leader of the discussion was Senator, Wilton Simpson, who will probably soon become a Senate President. He has actually been meeting with tribal officials religiously and we’ll see on Wednesday, the new deadline, what the final verdict is.

The Old Dispute

Lawmakers were not sure that they would be on the same page with the Seminole tribe regarding this matter, because they previously failed to reach an agreement with them back in 2016.

The tribe said that blackjack (that they had full exclusivity on) in the Sunny State at pari-mutuel tracks was actually illegal.

The court agreed with them, so the tribes threatened to freeze their revenue sharing payments, but Scott prevented that by making a deal with them.

Last year, Florida voters agreed that they should be in control of the gambling in this state. This almost put all activities related to gambling in the hands of the residents…

…while many officials, including the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, are strongly against giving the Seminole tribe more power.

Source:

“Florida sits down with Seminole tribe to hash out new compacts”, Erik Gibbs, calvinayre.com, April 8, 2019.