Florida Supreme Court rejects challenge to Seminole Tribe’s sports-betting operations

Seminole Hardrock Hotel & Casino, Hollywood, FL. Credit: Getty Images/Joe Raedle

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The Florida Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the state’s agreement with the Seminole Tribe of Florida allowing them to operate sports betting through computers and smartphones, citing procedural reasons, and allowing the continuation of wagering which the tribe began offering last November.

West Flagler Associates Ltd. and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp., respectively a casino and a poker room, had challenged a deal with the state that authorizing the tribe to offer sports betting from anywhere if the bets get routed through servers on tribal land.

But the tribe’s would-be competitors used a legal strategy that wasn’t appropriate in the circumstances, the court said in an 11-page opinion by Justice Meredith Sasso.

Justice Meredith Sasso. Credit: Florida Supreme Court

Specifically, the companies filed a “quo warranto” claim — meaning a challenge to a government official’s authority to take an official action, in this case the Legislature’s approval in 2021 of the so-called “Seminole Gaming Compact” and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing it into law.

“In other words, petitioners argue the governor and Legislature improperly exercised their respective authority because the substance of the compact … is inconsistent with article X, section 30” of the Florida Constitution, Sasso explained. That provision gives voters exclusive authority to authorize casino gambling.

“We have never used the writ [of quo warranto] to test the substantive constitutionality of a statute, and we decline petitioners’ implicit invitation to expand the scope of the writ here,” Sasso continued.

“To do so would serve as an affront to an essential feature of quo warranto — that it is used to challenge the authority to exercise a state power rather than the merits of the action.”

As an example of an appropriate use of the claim, Sasso cited a 1998 case in which the late Gov. Lawton Chiles and an abortion clinic challenged the Legislature override of a veto of an abortion bill during a regular session instead of a special session that was closer in time to the veto, as was required. The court vacated the override.

“It was not a challenge as to whether the statutes at issue substantively conflicted with the constitution,” Sasso wrote.

$2.5 billion

Although the court has allowed such arguments in the past, it was never “to address the substantive constitutionality of an enacted law,” Sasso wrote.

The challengers should have asked the court to declare the compact invalid and block its enforcement, the court said.

Also signing the opinion were Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz and justices Charles Canady, John Couriel, Jamie Grosshans, and Renatha Francis. Justice Jorge LaBarga agreed with the outcome but didn’t write a separate opinion.

Under the compact, the tribe is allowed to take sports bets through a “hub and spoke” network connecting remote devices to servers on tribal land. As a sovereign nation, the Seminoles have more leeway to offer gambling than do other actors. The state’s share of the take is estimated at $2.5 billion during the first five years.

The court rejected a similar challenge last November.

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