The Seminole Tribe of Florida will begin in-person sports betting, craps and roulette at all six of its casinos in December, the tribe announced Wednesday, and South Florida’s gamblers will get to experience it first. But the tribe has still not announced when or if it will launch online sports betting, the question on the minds of South Florida’s gamblers and gambling experts.
The announcement comes a week after the U.S Supreme Court lifted a stay to allow sports betting in the state to move forward, a milestone in a series of legal challenges to a gaming compact between the tribe and the state of Florida that gave it a monopoly on sports betting.
“The Seminole Tribe thanks the State of Florida, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the U.S. Department of Justice for defending our Compact. By working together, the Tribe, the State and the federal government achieved a historic legal victory,” Marcellus Osceola Jr., chairman of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, said in a statement.
Described as “A New Era in Florida Gaming,” celebrations of the launch of sports betting, craps and roulette will take place throughout the month of December, a Wednesday news release said. The official launch date is Dec. 7 for South Florida’s locations: Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, Seminole Classic Casino in Hollywood and Seminole Casino Coconut Creek.
The next day, the games will launch at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tampa, and on Dec. 11, they will launch at Seminole Casino Immokalee and Seminole Brighton Casino on the northwest side of Lake Okeechobee.
“The Seminole Tribe of Florida’s new initiative will create jobs, increase tourism, and provide billions in added revenue for our state,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in the news release. “I was proud to work with the Tribe on our historic Gaming Compact and I look forward to its full implementation.”
Some think that the announcement means that the tribe could launch online sports betting in the coming weeks or months; others say it could take years. The tribe had no update Wednesday on online sports betting plans, said Gary Bitner, a Seminole Tribe spokesman. In 2021, the Seminoles briefly launched a sports betting app but stopped accepting wagers after a court ruling blocked the deal.
Their decision will depend heavily on whether they think the U.S and Florida Supreme Courts are on their side. The Seminoles are currently facing two legal challenges brought to those courts by Florida pari-mutuel companies against the gaming compact and sports betting in the state.
But the longer they wait to launch online sports betting, the longer they miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each month, Wallach said.
The case before the U.S Supreme Court focuses specifically on the issue of online sports betting, though both cases present challenges to it.
In the U.S Supreme Court case, filed in 2021, the companies, represented by West Flagler Associates, argue that the gambling compact violates federal law by allowing gamblers to place mobile sports bets anywhere in the state, not only on tribal lands.
Meanwhile, the case West Flagler recently brought before the Florida Supreme Court argues that the compact violates a 2018 state amendment that requires voters to approve any further expansion of gambling in a statewide referendum.
Bob Jarvis
By launching in-person only sports betting, the Seminole Tribe is likely hoping to avoid another stay, this time from the Florida Supreme Court, that would halt or delay sports betting again, according to Bob Jarvis, a law professor and gambling expert at Nova Southeastern University. It is unlikely that the U.S Supreme Court will issue a second one.
“If the Seminoles had started mobile sports betting, I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty chance of the court granting a stay,” Jarvis said. “By only starting what everyone agrees the Seminoles are entitled to under Florida law, the Seminoles are in a much better state.”
In court documents, West Flagler has already signaled its intent to request that the court suspend the compact until it reaches a final decision on the case. The group will likely argue that even in-person sports betting violates Florida law by expanding gambling in the state without the required 60% approval from voters, he said.
That case could take between months and multiple years, depending on what the Florida Supreme Court decides to do. Experts’ opinions differ over the expected outcomes of the two cases.
The agreement between Florida and the Seminole Tribe hinges on the idea that, if the servers accepting the bets are located on tribal lands, the betting is still technically occurring there and allowed under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
The state and the tribe walked a “legal tightrope” when drafting the gaming compact, Wallach said, and “the resulting product was this construct of declaring all bets made outside Indian lands are deemed to be made on Indian lands where the server is located.”
He thinks that argument could present problems in both cases, and that the U.S Supreme Court may decide to take up the case and rule against the tribe. Some justices have already hinted at their own skepticism over the argument that the location of the servers makes the compact compliant with federal law.
“Wordsmithing where the bet takes place doesn’t change where the customer is located,” Wallach said.
Jarvis thinks the U.S Supreme Court will likely not take up the case, while the state case could take a while, but result in a victory for the Seminoles.
The amendment that the case hinges on has an exception for Indian gambling and was written and funded by the Seminoles, he said. And the Florida Supreme Court has rarely decided against DeSantis, who supports the gambling compact and likely want to see it implemented as soon as possible.
Still, West Flagler brought the case directly to the court, which has a precedent of asking lower courts to review cases before they accept them. If the Florida Supreme Court sends the case to a lower court and the challenge goes through the appeals process all the way back up to the Supreme Court again, Jarvis said, it could easily take until 2026 or 2027 for online sports betting to return.
Ultimately, though Wednesday’s announcement will bring in-person sports betting to those Floridians waiting for a legal route, he thinks it is just one of a series of incremental steps towards an online sports betting — and more generally, online gambling — future.
“It is the camel’s nose into the tent,” Jarvis said.” … Let us never think this is just about mobile sports betting.”
I loved
I liked
I dont liked
A staff report will be presented to council on May 8 that proposes loosening the moratorium on new or expanded gambling venues.
Parq Vancouver was opened in 2017 next to BC Place stadium in downtown Vancouver. Under current regulations, the 72,000-square-foot, two-storey casino is permitted 600 slot machines and 75 table games. It has maxed out that slot allowance and has 61 table games. Hastings Racecourse and Casino is owned and operated by Great Canadian Entertainment. It has 446 slot machines from an allowance of 600 on a casino floor beneath the horse racing grandstands.
The British Columbia Lottery Corporation wants to expand gambling at the two casinos in the city, Parq Casino Vancouver and Hastings Racecourse and Casino. BCLC proposes adding more slot machines and table games.
Parq currently has 600 slot machines and 61 gambling table while Hastings holds 446 slot machines. The report did not clarify how many the lottery corporation is looking to add.
A BCLC spokesperson told Canadian Gaming Business that through its consultations with Vancouver on the state of the gaming market and the performance of the facilities, “an opportunity was identified to enhance the gambling mix” at both venues.
The moratorium was implemented in 2011, around the same time that the city rejected an application for a 1,500-slot casino on the Vancouver waterfront. It means the city cannot accept a direct application from BCLC to expand one of its casinos. The report recommends an amendment to allow councillors to approve or reject such proposals. Applications for new gambling venues would still be banned.
“This approach aims to ensure council decisions are informed by sufficient detail to assess the impacts of expanding gambling at existing facilities… while keeping other elements of the moratorium intact,” the report reads.
BCLC highlights increased revenue potential.
B.C. regulations guarantee municipal governments 10% of net casino gaming revenue in their jurisdiction on an annual basis. Parq and Hastings contributed more than $7 million to the city in the 2022-23 fiscal year, according to financial disclosures in the report. Parq supplied more than $6 million of that.
BCLC forecasts that expansions to one or both of the venues could increase the government’s annual slice by somewhere between $2.6 million to $5 million.
“Like most cities, Vancouver has seen significant growth since the moratorium was approved in 2011, almost 15 years ago,” the BCLC spokesperson told Canadian Gaming Business. “Since then, the population has grown by an estimated 22% while the gambling mix in Vancouver has remain unchanged. Amending the moratorium would allow us to work with Vancouver city staff to look at ways to meet increased player demand and expectations in the city and generate additional revenue for the Province of B.C. and City of Vancouver.”
The report presents several options to council. They include amending the moratorium to accept an expansion application for one or both existing casinos, lifting it entirely for all casinos or conducting a full analysis before deciding.
In the report, staff recommend Option 1.
Although Shohei Ohtani is free of any charges in the case of the robbery of his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara to make illegal bets, the scandal continues, since it is now known that several Las Vegas casinos would be involved in this case, for having was the place where the sums were deposited.
According to what several sources related to the case revealed to ESPN, what the Japanese did was pay amounts of $500,000 from the star player's account, and that went directly to casino gambling accounts in Nevada City and some based in California. The next step was that the money was converted into chips and used to pay the bookmaker.
The broker in question is Mathew Bowyer, who was a client of the Las Vegas Resorts World casino chain. It was precisely to the accounts of this place that it is suspected that Ohtani's money was sent, without him being able to perceive anything of what was happening.
The FBI, which carried out an in-depth investigation to discover what had happened with the theft of around $16 million from the designated hitter, concluded that he "didn't know anything," which makes him a victim of the incident.
At a press conference, the highest-paid athlete in the world had already anticipated: "I never bet on baseball or any other sport, nor did I ever ask anyone to do so on my behalf. I never went to a betting house to bet on sports."
The hotel complex that is now at the center of the controversy, and from there responded: "Resorts World Las Vegas takes any suggestion of violation seriously and is cooperating with the ongoing investigation."
Pennsylvania casinos are cutting slot inventory over poor performance, with one placing blame on the unregulated skill game machines found in convenience stores and gas stations.
Rivers Pittsburg received permission from the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) to remove 302 slots from its casino floor. While it acknowledged the need for newer machines, the casino put most of the blame on the widespread availability of skill games, which it says are just unregulated slots.
The casino industry continues to attack skill games for loss of revenue, yet these losses don’t seem to appear in any of their reporting. While they spin misleading information, we will stick to the facts. The fact is, that skill games are a legal source of income that Pennsylvania’s small businesses rely on every day to make ends meet, Chief Public Affairs Officer, Michael Barley, Pace-O-Matic, manufacturer of skill games.
Pennsylvania’s retail casinos aren’t the only ones experiencing a slowdown. Even Nevada and New Jersey—states almost synonymous with gambling—have been feeling it. Definitively attributing the pinch to any particular cause is harder.
While the state legislature remains deadlocked, some local lawmakers have taken independent action. Days after the Supreme Court allowed the skill games to operate, the Philadelphia City Council banned skill games inside gas stations and convenience stores. As expected, skill game manufacturers and operators responded with a lawsuit.
Rodgers was banned from pro football a year ago after a league probe found that the then-Indianapolis Colts player placed bets through a legal online sportsbook in Indiana.
The Colts cut Rodgers after his suspension was handed down. The Eagles signed the free agent in August.
Rodgers’ reinstatement allows him to immediately resume all team activities in Philadelphia. The Eagles and the rest of the NFL are readying for the NFL Draft that begins on Thursday night.
20 yards and no touchdowns entangle Kayson Boutte, plus 8,900 wagers.
Rodgers is one of more than a dozen players who have been suspended since 2018 for violating the league’s gambling policy. The regulations prohibit all team members, referees, and front-office staff from betting on any NFL game regardless of whether they’re directly participating or involved.
Dekkers only 20 when he allegedly wagered.
An investigation last year determined that Rodgers made over 100 bets on NFL games, including a prop bet on Colts running back Jonathan Taylor that won $1,000. Rodgers was never determined to have thrown or tried to fix a game, but he did bet on his team winning and Taylor rushing for more yards than the total oddsmakers had for his over/under.
Game Integrity
Legal sports betting in the US is more widespread than ever, and that’s heightened concerns about game integrity among officials of the “big four” — the NFL, MLB, the NBA, and the NHL.
The NBA recently took the drastic step of issuing Jontay Porter a lifetime ban after it was discovered that the Toronto Raptors franchise player tried to fix games and threw a performance for the benefit of bettors. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said there is “nothing more important” than protecting the integrity of the sport, which Porter threatened.
Betting scandals have also recently rocked MLB, most noteworthy being the controversy involving Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter who allegedly stole millions of dollars from his boss to fund his sports betting activity.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have warned that an unregistered gaming site is fraudulently using the Casino Rama name in social media advertising to draw unsuspecting players to its own site.
In a joint advisory, the OPP and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) said that online gambling adverts that have been promoting gaming offerings allegedly provided by Casino Rama have no association with the Gateway Casinos & Entertainment-operated casino. In reality, the ads direct the public to a website belonging to WinSpirit Casino, which operates as an unregistered gaming platform. The OPP’s Investigation and Enforcement Bureau (IEB) was notified of the suspected fraudulent marketing on April 11.
“Residents of Ontario who opt for online gambling are urged to exercise caution when encountering such advertisements and to verify that the gaming site they intend to use is registered with the AGCO,” the OPP said in a statement.
Police stress that Casino Rama has no affiliation with any unregistered online casinos. The IEB and AGCO jointly reminded the public to exercise caution when choosing to access online casino gaming sites found through social media advertisements.
(571) 7568829 - 3606414 - 3606415 FAX (57 1) 3605027
Bogotá / Medellín / Cali / Pereira / Barranquilla
