Sports betting by cellphone is still blocked in Florida while litigation continues

In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that a federal law, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), allowed the tribe to accept remote sports bets placed through those devices located off its Hollywood and Tampa-area reservations as long they are routed through servers on tribal land.

However, the same court delayed implementation of its ruling to allow an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roberts’ order last week merely continues that injunction pending review by the full Supreme Court.

“They do that when they have a motion for a stay and they just want to keep everything at status quo until the rest of the court has a chance to look at it,” Barry Richard, the tribe’s lawyer, told the Phoenix by telephone on Monday. “I wouldn’t read anything into it.”

IGRA allows tribes to offer gambling on their sovereign lands. A deal, the so-called Seminole Gaming Compact, reached in 2021 between Gov. Ron DeSantis and the tribe, and ratified by the Legislature, allows the “hub-and-spoke” arrangement for computer sports bets filtered through servers on Indian land.

The arrangement resolved years of conflict over the terms of an earlier compact to allow the tribe to resume paying the state a cut of its gambling profits. The state projected its takings at $2.5 billion through the first five years and $6 billion by 2030.

Parties

West Flagler Associates Ltd. and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp., respectively a casino and a poker room operator, brought the lawsuit that resulted in the appeal. These competitors to the tribe prevailed in trial court — forcing the tribe to turn off the remote sports betting it had briefly offered before then — but lost before the D.C. Circuit. Those parties then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The named defendant is Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. The tribe is not a direct party to the litigation but has filed friend-of-the-court briefs seeking to influence the outcome. The department told the Phoenix by email Monday that it would have no comment. The Hard Rock casinos operation, controlled by the tribe, has yet to respond to a request for comment.

“[T]o be sure, an IGRA gaming compact can legally authorize a tribe to conduct gaming only on its own lands. But at the same time, IGRA does not prohibit a gaming compact — which is, at bottom, an agreement between a tribe and a state — from discussing other topics, including those governing activities outside Indian lands,” the appeals court ruled.

“The District Court erred by reading into the compact a legal effect it does not (and cannot) have, namely, independently authorizing betting by patrons located outside of the tribe’s lands. Rather, the compact itself authorizes only the betting that occurs on the Tribe’s lands; in this respect it satisfied IGRA,” it continued.

“Whether it is otherwise lawful for a patron to place bets from non-tribal land within Florida may be a question for that state’s courts, but it is not the subject of this litigation and not for us to decide.”

Brief to come

None of the parties have filed briefs with the justices yet, Richard noted. The tribe is still weighing whether to file an amicus brief, he said.

The Supreme Court attracts between 7,000 and 8,000 petitions to hear cases every year and agrees to hear perhaps 80, according to Statista, an online data platform. During its last term, the court issued rulings in 58 cases.

The anti-gambling organization No Casinos argues that, under Amendment 3 to the Florida Constitution, approved by 71.5 percent of the voters in 2018, the compact must be submitted to the voters for approval. But that amendment doesn’t cover the Seminoles, a sovereign nation. No Casinos hasn’t responded to a request for comment.