Capital Comment: Galvano weighs in on gambling deal

© 2010 HeraldTribune
Sunday, April 11, 2010

Some suggest Florida's approval last week of a gambling pact with the Seminole Tribe now sets the nation's fourth-largest state on an inevitable course to becoming a major gaming destination, like Nevada or New Jersey.

Rep. Bill Galvano, one of the Legislature's leading negotiators on the agreement, doesn't see it that way.

Instead, the Bradenton Republican and lawyer said the Seminole agreement, which will bring the state more than $1 billion over the next five years, represents a reasonable resolution of a complicated legal battle that has been going on for years between the tribe and the state.

Without an agreement, Galvano said the dispute would have ended up in court, dragging on for years and costing the state and federal taxpayers more legal fees. If the state were successful, the outcome could resemble the deal that lawmakers and the governor struck with the tribe last week.

In a broader view, Galvano said the agreement, which gives the Seminoles the right to operate casino-style card games like blackjack for the next five years, offers the state an opportunity to take a comprehensive view of its gambling future.

Part of the problem with the current system is that Florida historically has addressed gambling in "a piecemeal fashion without an overall plan," Galvano said.

The Seminole pact does not necessarily commit Florida to a path that will lead to full-scale casinos around the state, Galvano said. Rather, the state can use the next five years to make some long-term decisions about Florida's gaming future.

Galvano, who has won praise for his handling of the complex negotiations, said the lengthy debate over the Seminole agreement has been "educational" for state leaders.

"I think we have had to stop and take a look at who we are really as a gambling state," he said. "And we haven't liked everything that we have seen. But this is not intended to be a segue into anything more than an opportunity for us to have a further conversation."

Although the state will have more leverage when the card game agreement expires in five years, it's difficult to see how lawmakers can extract themselves from a deal that will be providing more than $200 million a year to the state budget.

Indeed, the linkage between gambling and state revenue has a long history in Florida. It was during another difficult economic time -- the Great Depression -- when state lawmakers approved Florida's original pari-mutuel industry that led to horse tracks, dog tracks and jai alai frontons spreading across the state.

Some have suggested the Seminole agreement may lead to the demise of many of those tracks and frontons in Central and North Florida, since unlike the South Florida tracks that have slot machines, they will not be able to compete with the Seminoles' card games and slot machines.

Others say the expansion of the Seminole casinos may make it easier for companies that operate the major casinos in places like Las Vegas and Atlantic City to bring full-scale gambling to Florida. Those proposals may become very attractive given the talk that a casino permit could bring $1 billion or more to the state.

Galvano said that kind of speculation is premature.

"If you think there is controversy between the pari-mutuels and the Seminoles, wait until it's Vegas and the pari-mutuels," he said.