Seminoles Plead Case for BlackJack

By Josh Hafenbrack
Copyright © 2010, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The Seminole tribe is making a new argument to keep its legally questionable blackjack games up and running: Since pari-mutuel facilities now have virtual blackjack, the tribe is entitled to keep their table-and-dealer live version.

At the tribe’s request, federal Indian gambling regulators with the National Indian Gaming Commission visited South Florida Wednesday to inspect virtual blackjack machines at Mardi Gras Gaming in Hallandale Beach, one of three Broward facilities with the game.

In virtual blackjack, players sit around a TV monitor, and there’s an electronic board instead of chips. Winners are chosen from a random number generator, same as with a slot machine.

Under federal law, the Seminole tribe is allowed to have any gambling game that’s authorized anywhere in Florida. The question, though, is whether virtual blackjack is the same as the real thing.

Dan Adkins, president of Mardi Gras, said they’re extremely different.

“The virtual blackjack that we have is a slot machine -- nothing else,” Adkins said. “There is no live dealer, there are no cards, no chips. Every machine has a random number generator.”

The tribe had no comment on the matter, spokesman Gary Bitner said Wednesday night.

Officials with the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation also flew down to South Florida for the virtual blackjack inspection. “We were showing (NIGC officials) how the virtual blackjack machines work, which are basically slot machines,” said DBPR spokeswoman Alexis Lambert.

Getting federal approval for the tribe’s popular blackjack tables – operating under a voided 2007 gambling deal with Gov. Charlie Crist – is becoming increasingly important. Thursday in Tallahassee, a state House committee is expected to reject a reworked revenue-sharing gambling deal, signed by the tribe and Crist over the summer. That will leave the tribe in limbo.

Meantime, the Florida House has asked the federal government to shut down the blackjack activity at Seminole resorts, arguing the games are illegal.