|
This week's gambling news finds Florida gambling in the headlines again, and now the battle for expanded casino gambling and sports betting is getting downright ugly.
The fight between the Sands Corporation and the Seminole Tribe is wrapped up in lawsuits, legal actions, and accusations of conspiracy, sabotage and corruption.
The fight for Florida gambling and sports betting is an important one, as the state has the potential to be the third largest market in America. So naturally, there are going to be a few punches thrown with so much potential profit at stake for years to come. Enter the contenders: The Florida Seminole Tribe vs. everyone else, with everyone else being represented by the Sands Corporation.
A recent Federal Court decision put an end to a near monopoly on sports betting in the state by the Seminoles. And now, the whole ugly mess is mired in a lawsuit that seems to grow more and more ugly each week. So, the state Supreme Court is set to mull a constitutional amendment to add casino games, including sports betting, for Florida gambling via pari-mutuel operators. Whether of not they can get enough signatures seems to be up for debate, although representatives of those running the petitions don’t seem concerned. They note that the 223,000 signatures reported are only those which have been validated so far, not the total number they have gathered.
The Seminole Tribe opposes this ballot measure, of course, and several days ago a committee with links to the tribe accused those who support the measure of “widespread, election-law conspiracy” while trying to gather those coveted signatures, as reported by CBS 12. Add to the Florida gambling melodrama the accusations of those who support the measure that the Seminoles are trying to illegally “sabotage” their petition drive paying off those trying to gather signatures for petitions! Additionally, the committee linked to the Seminoles asked a Circuit Court Judge to rule that the signatures gathered were “illegally obtained” and throw them out as those gathering them had violated laws of the state.
|