The State of Florida and the Seminole Tribe butted heads in a federal court last week over the question of whether or not the tribe be allowed to continue to offer blackjack tables at its casinos. After the three day non-jury trial, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle ended the hearings on both sides, although a ruling is only expected in the coming weeks.
In 2010, Florida gambling authorities and representatives for the Seminole Tribe signed a compact, allowing the tribe to offer blackjack at its casinos that include the Hard Rock casinos in Tampa and Hollywood. One of the provisions of the compact was that the blackjack allowance would expire in 2015. The Seminole Tribe petitioned for a larger, expanded compact that would also allow it to offer craps and roulette at their casino tables. However, the Florida Legislature rejected this request, as it felt the heat of dog and horse racing tracks who were also seeking gambling expansion.
The federal court heard both sides of the argument: On the one hand, the state’s gambling authorities want the judge to order the tribe to remove blackjack tables from their casinos, in line with the restrictions in the compact. One the other hand, the tribe, which has collected nearly $1.7 billion from the blackjack tables since 2010, are loath to lose this source of income. Instead, they are charging the gambling authorities for going back on their promise to give them a monopoly in the industry since, shortly after the compact was signed, they allowed racing tracks to offer certain forms of card games and slot machines.
Attorney Barry Richard, acting for the tribe, accused Florida of pressuring the tribe to increase its payouts to the state as a condition for restarting negotiations on the 2010 compact. This, he told the court, was not allowed under federal law.
J. Carter Andersen, representing the state, countered that that tribe knew that it would need to cease operating blackjack tables if its compact wasn’t extended with authorities.
“Why are we here? Because the tribe has no contractual right or other right to get what it wanted,” he said.
“The most important issue of this whole trial is that the tribe is paying the state of Florida literally billions of dollars for the right to have exclusivity in offering banked card games,” said Barry Richard. “The question is, is it OK for the state to let the pari-mutuels do what I think any rational person would say circumvents that and takes undue advantage of the tribe, which is setting up a game which is the same thing,” Richard said. “They’re just having the group of squirrely rules to pretend that it’s something different, but the effect on the tribe is the same.”
