Stakes high on Seminole gambling deal
Tribe, Crist haven’t reached agreement yet

By Bob Rathgeber
brathgeber@news-press.com
© 2009 Ft. Myers News-press
Monday, August 3, 2009

Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole Tribe of Florida have less than a month to shake hands on a gambling deal that would put millions of dollars into the state treasury every year.

But if the two sides can’t agree, both are in jeopardy of losing big — the state could lose its gambling taxes and/or the Seminoles could be forced to fold up lucrative blackjack and poker card games.

How the negotiations are going depends on who’s doing the talking.

“From the feedback I have received and monitored, I believe they (the tribe) are attempting to renegotiate based on new terms,” said Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, the Legislature’s leading voice on the gambling deal.

On the other side, however, there’s another point of view.

“The tribe is really very optimistic,” said Gary Bitner, a Seminole tribe spokesman from Fort Lauderdale. “They have been trying for 20 years now and this is farthest they’ve ever gone. The tribe views all the steps as positive. This is the closest they’ve ever been.”

Crist and the Seminoles are negotiating a bill passed by the state House and Senate earlier this year that spelled out details of a gambling agreement.

Among its many provisions:

• Blackjack in Broward and Hillsborough counties.

• Unlimited high stakes poker in casinos and parimutuel facilities throughout the state, including the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track and the Seminole Casino in Immokalee.

• Twenty-four hour poker rooms at the dog and horse tracks and jai alai frontons.

The bill also allows the tribe the exclusive right to operate slot machines at its casinos in Tampa, Central Florida and Immokalee. In exchange, the Seminoles would pay the state at least $150 million a year.

There’s a rub for the tribe, however.

The Legislature didn’t rule out an option to expand gambling elsewhere — such as slot machines at Miami International Airport or in other parts of the state. If that happened, the tribe’s guarantee would be lower.

But the Seminoles want the exclusive right to slot machines outside of Broward, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough counties.

The failure of legislators to guarantee that provision appears to be a sticking point. Galvano said the Legislature might consider some tweaks to the bill, but nothing that changes its original dynamics.

“It depends on what a tweak is,” he said.

In Galvano’s opinion, at least, a possible tweak — allowing blackjack in Immokalee — would not fly.

“Making changes in major policy decisions would be a very heavy lift,” Galvano said. “I am sure we would lose many more (House votes) if it were to include Collier.”

If Crist and the tribe salvage a gambling compact by Aug. 31, legislators would meet in a special session, likely in October, to ratify it.

If no deal is struck, the federal government gets involved and anything could happen — from the Seminoles losing their Florida gambling license (Galvano says that could happen) to open gambling all over the state (a position held by George LeMieux, former chief of staff for Crist and now on the legal team representing the governor in the talks).

“At the end of day, that is a huge risk for tribe,” Galvano said.