While Florida’s historic sports betting deal with the Seminole tribe is scrutinizing for federal government approval, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber sent a letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior on Thursday asking it to reject what he said calls a “tortured device”. negotiates with the corrupt intent to expand gambling in Florida in violation of state and federal laws.
“I support the goals of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (“ IGRA ”), namely to offer Indian tribes a path to greater independence and economic vitality. But the Florida Compact you are considering was not geared towards those goals, ”Gelber wrote in a nine-page letter to Deb Haaland, secretary of the US Department of the Interior.
“It was simply a vehicle hijacked by non-tribal casino interests that completely corrupted the legislative and executive process to gain advantage outside of the tribal lands and in direct conflict with the interests of the Floridians.”
The Department of the Interior has 45 days after May 25, the date the Bill ratifying the Covenant was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis to approve or reject the Florida accord. If DOI does not take any action within this time, the contract is considered approved.
The 74-page contract negotiated between DeSantis and the tribe’s chairman Marcellus W. Osceola Jr. and a number of attorneys gives the tribe exclusive rights to full Florida casino games and 40% of the winnings from all sports betting in the Status. In return, the tribe would guarantee the state $ 500 million in revenue-sharing payments for 30 years. The legislature adopted the measure with an overwhelming majority.
Gelber, whose city has consistently opposed casino gambling within its geographic boundaries, also claims that the contract was negotiated for an improper purpose because it “also requires the Seminole tribe of Florida to undertake gambling operations that continue than fifteen (15.)) miles from its Hollywood casinos. ”
“Our governor did not want to advance the goals of the IGRA, but he was most interested in representing the interests of non-tribal political donors and his main political patron,” said Gelber, referring to former President Donald Trump, who Gelber and others fear transferring a casino license to his Trump Doral Resort and possibly selling the financially troubled resort to another casino company.
Gelber also referred to the efforts of Jeffrey Soffer, the owner of Fontainebleau Miami Beach, to bring a casino license to his resort.
Gelber argues that the 25-mile language to the Fontainebleau Miami Beach and Trump Doral is “a necessary requirement for the creation of casinos in the cities of Doral or Miami Beach or other locations in Miami-Dade County,” noting that Florida voters banned the expansion of gambling without a nationwide referendum, the pact was “the only available way to expand gambling to non-Indian interests.”
“These same interests have reportedly provided gifts of air travel, yacht parties, and other non-monetary donations to state officials including Governor DeSantis,” he wrote. “Indeed, their efforts have paid off as Governor DeSantis added provisions to the Florida Compact that laid the foundation for the casino expansion for a major campaign donor at Fontainebleau Miami Beach and for its major political sponsor at Trump Doral. “
The role of the Ministry of Interior
In many ways, the agreement is unprecedented and requires the agency to contradict existing legal precedents in order to approve it, but both the Governor and Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming and Hard Rock International, are confident that the agreement will be honored approved.
Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary in US history, will make the decision because DOI is responsible for Indian gambling through the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. It is not the task of the federal government to settle legal disputes, but to preserve the economic independence and sovereignty of the tribe. The agency has already turned down contracts and could do it again.
Gelber, an attorney and former Florida attorney general candidate, provided a legal framework for the DOI to reach that conclusion.
First, he said what opponents have been suggesting since the deal was drawn up behind closed doors earlier this year: The plan to authorize gambling across the state violates the IGRA as it “falsely authorizes Class III games outside of tribal areas.” .
Under the agreement, only a “hub-and-spoke” model would be allowed and sports betting would be offered at racecourses, card rooms and Jai-Alai frontons across the state, but all wagers would go through the tribe’s internet server, the “Hub “.
According to IGRA, gambling activities authorized in a tribal state treaty may take place “only on Indian land,” and Florida’s treaty defines electronic betting as being exclusively at the server location on Indian land where bets are placed, even if the person placing the bet does so could do anywhere in Florida.
Gelber argues that the hub-and-spoke system is “inconsistent and fundamentally contrary to federal law”. He cites a federal court ruling in California against the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel which found it “obvious” that the phrase “on Indian land” used in IGRA was “intended to restrict gaming to those customers who participate in gaming activity While in Indian Land “and placing a wager or wager while outside of tribal areas in California is a” gaming activity “that is” not IGRA protected. “
Legislators have anticipated legal concerns
This argument worried even legislative supporters of the pact.
Fleming Island Rep. Sam Garrison, a Republican and attorney, told the House of Representatives before it voted on the law on May 19, “As we have said from day one and as the parties have considered, it is an open question … There is no black and white answer as to whether the hub-and-spoke model will be allowed or not. ”
James Kilsby, vice president of VIXIO Gambling Compliance and gambling analyst, said in an interview and podcast that New Jersey and Michigan lawmakers have authorized the hub-and-spoke model for their online sports betting, but to use the trunk as a hub, is unprecedented. In order for DOI to consider it a form of tribal game, the Seminole tribe must be the sole ownership of sports betting, he said, and that includes controlling the platform, deciding which bets to accept, and the odds.
Next, Gelber suggests that since the tribe is a sovereign nation and is not subject to any state laws other than what it stipulates in the pact, the agreement “on persistent and destructive conflict” between the tribe and its gamblers and parimutuel partners will lead and disagreements over bets that are controversial.
“To advance this tortured device, the Florida Compact could not allow the bets that actually take place outside of tribal land to be regulated by non-tribal authorities,” wrote Gelber. “Therefore, the Florida Compact not only promotes a massive expansion of betting from tribal areas, but also leaves any regulation or supervision for those who bet on non-Indian land to tribal supervision.”
Allen told lawmakers that gambling disputes are settled by the Tribal Gaming Commission, but, Gelber argued, when a parent “alleges that minors gambled or that there were fraudulent practices that can only be resolved through tribal law can”.
“There is no reason to believe that the Seminole tribe are ready to offer anywhere near the kind of supervision that would be necessary for the huge volume of betting from across Florida,” said Gelber. “And the discontent will only serve to worsen relations between the Seminole tribe and the Floridians.”
Allen testified before House committees that the tribe had an honorable track record in regulating their gambling businesses and suggested that the state trust them to continue to be a good administrator.
Gelber notes that the contract does not include an obligation for the tribe to protect the confidentiality of Floridians’ data collected through online mobile sports betting apps.
“What remedy will a mother in Miami have when she finds that her child has put a gambling bill on her credit card after the child was targeted by data harvesting?” He asked. “Either there will be no remedy, or it will force the Tribal Commission to adopt a regulatory mission that it is unlikely to be and should not be asked to accept.”
Allen was asked by MP Christine Hunchofsky, D-Parkland, during the legislative session what the tribe will do. He replied that the tribe is currently protecting privacy, but has no answer as to whether it will allow its customers to opt out of collecting their private information for marketing purposes.
Finally, the IGRA authorizes the Minister of the Interior to reject a contract if it violates IGRA and federal law. He cites examples of federal laws that may be violated, such as the illegal Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, in which courts have said that even if a bet is accepted on tribal land, payments over the internet are not legal if it isn’t Tribal land initiated.
“Floridians are watching a tribal gambling pact become a vehicle through which widespread casino gambling is spread across our state,” wrote Gelber. “… This agency should not join these misguided efforts.”
Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at [email protected] and @MaryEllenKlas
Mary Ellen Klas is the Head of the State Capitol Bureau for the Miami Herald, where she covers government and politics, and focuses on investigative and accountability reporting. Mary Ellen Nieman was a Fellow at Harvard University from 2018-19 and was named a Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism in 2019. In 2018 she won the Sunshine Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. The Herald’s statehouse office is a joint operation with the Tampa Bay Times statehouse staff. Please support your work with a digital subscription. You can reach her at [email protected] and on Twitter @MaryEllenKlas.
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