Jim Rosica
State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, the Florida House of Representatives’ point man on gambling, said Thursday said the Senate’s current version of the Seminole Compact and accompanying gambling overhaul is “too much” for his tastes – and that of his membership.
“There’s a lot of extra slot parlors in the Senate bill,” said Diaz, the Miami Republican who chairs the Regulatory Affairs Committee. “That would probably cause a riot over here.”
The new compact guarantees $3 billion over seven years for continued exclusivity to the Seminole Tribe of Florida to offer blackjack. The tribe now has the card game at its Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa and six other casinos; a part of a previous agreement expired and had to be renegotiated.
But this week the Senate Regulated Industries Committee tacked on several amendments, including expanding slot machines beyond South Florida to pari-mutuel facilities, lowering the effective tax rate on the machines, and clarifying that fantasy sports play is a game of skill and not gambling.
Slot machine expansion would be tied to whether a specific county’s voters OK’d having slot machines in a local referendum. Six already have passed such ballot measures: Brevard, Gadsden, Hamilton, Lee, Palm Beach, and Washington counties.
“We know there’s 30-plus pari-mutuels (dog and horse racetracks) across the state, and there are legislators that believe their people have spoken, and they’re going to fight to get those slot machines,” Diaz said after a House floor session. “Some people don’t want slot parlors anywhere near them.”
In the 120-member House “my 61 votes start getting diluted once (members) start seeing the prospect of a slots parlor in their backyard,” he said. In Florida, the gambling views of lawmakers are usually swayed by regional tastes and not party affiliation.
“There are certain counties where you could never pass a referendum but just the thought of it being out there, looming in the background, scares the bejesus out of people,” Diaz said. Most in Central Florida, beholden to the draw of family-oriented theme parks and resorts, are some of those counties.
He added he still has to talk to the Seminoles for their opinion of the current Senate position, mostly rewritten by Senate President-designate Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican.
A previous statement said only that the tribe “hopes to continue working with legislators to finalize a Compact agreement this session.”
Diaz’s worry about the Seminoles: “There comes a point where they just walk,” meaning billions of dollars of future revenue goes with them.
Meantime, the tribe and Gov. Rick Scott still have guns on each other in the form of federal lawsuits, each saying the other is in breach of the rest of the existing agreement.
Diaz said he was waiting on financial analyzes of all the latest proposals from his staff. The earliest the House could again consider the compact, he added, would be Feb. 29 – a scant two work weeks before the scheduled end of the 60-day Legislative Session.
One comment
Steven Norton
February 19, 2016 at 8:20 pm
Of the 6 counties that have voted to allow slot machines at pari-mutual’s, Palm Beach have already been included in the Seminole compact, and three are in Northern Florida, far away from Tribal casinos. So the primary competition to 3 of the smaller Seminole casinos, would come if slots were approved at the Bonito Springs Greyhound track. Representative Diaz’s proposed House bill calls for another State referendum, like the one in 2004, that gave slots to Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, subject to follow up county votes. Hopefully the House and Senate will agree to separate the Seminole compact from the other gaming issues, that could seriously complicate matters. Hopefully separate legislation will decouple dog racing, but allow these tracks to remain profitable with poker and off track betting. And if those tracks that now have slots are allowed to keep them, at least raise the tax back top 50% or even higher, like PA, NY, DE and MD.
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