State gambling agreement with Seminole tribe
may still be far away

By Steven Beardsley
© 2009 Naples Daily News
Monday, October 19, 2009

So much for the rush to ink a Seminole compact.

Two months after negotiators raced to meet a deadline for the $3 billion gambling deal between the state and tribe, progress has slowed to a crawl.

Legislators must approve any deal before it is forwarded to the federal government. Yet, lawmakers rejected an October special session on the issue, and a November session appears unlikely. Some have said the complexity of the agreement and its potential impact for the state are reasons more time is needed.

“The big issue at stake here is this is a 20-year compact,” said Jaren Emhof, press secretary to state Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach. “We get one chance.”

The stakes are significant. A tentative deal, forwarded by Gov. Charlie Crist and Seminole negotiators on Aug. 31, calls for the tribe to pay a minimum $150 million in annual revenue sharing to state education coffers. Crist’s office projects a $6.8 billion haul over the life of the agreement.

In return, the tribe will receive rights to Class III games such as Vegas-style slots and banked card games like blackjack, both of which are prohibited in most of the state.

All seven Seminole casinos, including the one in Immokalee, will offer the games under the proposal. An agreement framework passed by legislators in May excluded the games from three of the casinos, including the one in Immokalee.

Seminole Casino Immokalee already offers Class III games, the tribe citing a previous compact signed by Crist and approved by the federal government. That agreement was later rejected by the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled the Legislature, not the governor, needed to craft the deal.

Tribal councilman Max Osceola said the tribe wants to see the new compact approved.

“It’s out of our hands,” he said. “We’ve negotiated twice, and we’re waiting for the state to make the right decision.”

A deal would also include perks for state pari-mutuels, including longer card room hours and higher poker stakes.

A potential stumbling block is the question of whether pari-mutuels should be allowed to pursue Class III games. Currently, only seven pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties legally offer the games.

In the May framework, legislators permitted other pari-mutuels to seek the games. The proposal submitted in August, however, excludes that provision, limiting pari-mutuels with the games to Broward and Miami-Dade.

The tribe maintains it is paying for exclusive rights to the games across the state. Legislators measure exclusivity as a geographical area around each casino, not statewide.

Emhof, with Atwater’s office, suggested the issue will be significant in the Legislature.

The senator sent roughly 20 pages of questions on the compact to Crist’s office in late September. Many dealt with the exclusivity stipulations, Emhof said.

He said time is needed to look over the answers to those questions, which Atwater recently received.

“I know the president is still committed to trying to come to an agreement, to find a resolution sooner rather than later,” Emhof said. “As everyone’s said all along, it brings money into the state, money that we need.”

Osceola described the choice as a simple one.

“I never can predict the future,” he said. “All I know is that if the compact is not approved, the children of the state of Florida will lose, because all that money that would go to education will not.”

Whether a November or December session will be held remains to be seen, said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Crist. An October session was attractive because legislators were to be in Tallahassee for committee meetings, he said.

“We’re just waiting to see if there’s an opportunity in November,” he said.

If not, it remains to be seen whether legislators will postpone action until March 2010, when the regular session begins.

“I think that’s going to be up to the legislative leadership, when they’re ready to tackle the issue,” Ivey said.

Osceola said the tribe can wait.

“We’ve done our part,” he said. “We can’t push the other people. Whatever time they take, that’s what they do.”