Editorial: Lawmakers wrong to kill Seminole compact

Monday, January 25, 2010  

"A legislative committee was wrong to shred the latest gambling agreement reached by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole tribe because the state now risks losing more than $100 million a year.

Hope remains for another negotiated settlement that would send a cut of the gambling profits to the state treasury without significantly increasing gambling. The Legislature should work to get that deal done.

Meanwhile, it is possible that the National Indian Gaming Commission will intervene. Federal officials might, as some legislators suggest, order the Seminole casinos to stop playing blackjack, a game never legalized in this state. The casinos might also be allowed to continue playing slots, without sharing its profits with the state.

American Indians are generally allowed to do on their reservations whatever is allowed anywhere else in any given state. Voters in 2004 approved a local option to allow slot machines in Broward and Miami-Dade horse tracks, dog tracks and jai-alai frontons. That appeared to permit the tribes to operate slots."

Get the Story:
Editorial: State lawmakers pass up a sure bet (The Tampa Tribune 1/25)

Also Today:
Read the Seminole tribe's blackjack argument to feds (The South Florida Sun-Sentinel 1/22)