Case Expected to Return to Lower Court
The legal issues surrounding Florida online sports betting took another turn on Thursday after the state supreme court ruled that opponents of the Seminole tribes’ compact with the state had filed the wrong type of petition in the case.
Attorneys for the owners of the Magic City Casino and Bonita Springs Poker Room (known as West Flagler Associates) have challenged the compact and are also appealing the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court. The state ruling allows the attorneys to refile their petition in a different court as well before proceeding to the state supreme court.
“This Court has never permitted use of the writ in the manner which Petitioners seek — to address the substantive constitutionality of an enacted law,” justices wrote in denying the petition.
Details on the Ruling
In essence, the ruling is based on a technicality and doesn’t mean that the state supreme court will ultimately decide the issue, although West Flagler attorneys haven’t announced their plans. Gaming law expert Daniel Wallach believes the ruling directs attorneys on how to proceed from here and expects West Flagler to continue the fight in state court.
“This decision is not a ruling on the merits,” Wallach noted on Twitter. “The Court is simply saying that this type of constitutional challenge is improperly before the SCOFL (supreme court of Florida) and must instead be filed in the Florida trial courts as an action for declaratory relief – which is precisely what will happen next.”
The compact between the Seminoles and the state gave the tribe the exclusive right to offer online and mobile betting to bettors across the state and outside the tribe’s traditional lands. The plaintiffs have argued that the compact violates a moratorium on expanded gaming that was approved by voters in 2018.
The supreme court ruling doesn’t address that issue, however, and instead punts the case back to a lower court.
“Because this decision does not address the merits of whether the state’s online sports betting law violates Florida Amendment 3, West Flagler could still raise the constitutional challenge in Leon County Circuit Court,” Wallach said.
The Seminoles continue to operate sports betting in the state as the legal issues continue to play out. Sports betting could produce millions of dollars for both the tribe and the state. At the federal level, West Flagler Associates have asked the Supreme Court for a full review of an appellate court’s decision upholding the compact.
Attorneys argue that Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland lacked the authority to give the green light to a compact that allowed for gaming off traditional Indian lands. Attorneys said the compact was a “backdoor around” voters’ efforts to ban expanded gaming in the state.
“The compact at issue here clearly provides for gaming off Indian lands,” West Flager noted.
Attorneys have also argued that the compact violates equal protection aspects of the Constitution as well by granting “an Indian tribe a statewide monopoly to conduct online sports gaming while simultaneously making such conduct a felony if done by anyone of a different race, ancestry, ethnicity, or national origin.” While justices previously sent the issue back to state court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed to agree with the equal protection issues surrounding the case.
