The agreement requires the tribe to pay states $500 million a year or $2.5 billion over five years for the right to monopolize.
The deal has been under fire since it was approved by the state legislature and DeSantis in May 2021 as many believe it violated Indian game regulations laws. However, while the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ new rules have been taken off Indian soil, it says bets through tribal servers are legal as long as the state agrees. These rules take effect on March 22.
With court cases ongoing in both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, Seminole launched its Hard Rock Bet platform on Nov. 7, 2023, and began opening offline sportsbooks across Florida a month later.
WFA has been trying to find a way to invalidate the compact since Seminole was approved by DOI in fall 2021, saying its monopoly on digital sports betting would be detrimental to their business. The company owns two Paris Mutul in South Florida.
COURT: Quo Warranto does not replace imperative relief
The WFA argued in a Florida Supreme Court filing that the 2021 agreement and subsequent approvals from the state legislature and DeSantis violate Florida law after the Third Amendment was passed by voters in 2018.
The law, Articles X, and 30 require that the expansion of the game go to the electorate, but this was not the case. In the government’s response to the WFA petition, the WFA wrote that the court should deny the petition “because it seeks a declaration of the substantive constitutionality of the legislated law.” 슬롯머신
It is that argument that the court has reserved its opinion.
“As we will explain, (DeSantis et al.) agree that respondents cannot replace what petitioners seek, such as declarative and prohibitive relief, on the substance of the law that ratifies game contracts,” Sasso wrote.
She went on to explain why:
“The petitioners claim that the governor and the Legislature “exercised their respective powers inappropriately” because the substance of the Convention reflected in Articles 285.710(3)(b)(14) and 849.142 and the Florida Statute (2023), the Enforcement Law, is inconsistent with Articles X and 30.
“This is problematic because no matter how far the use of the status quo warrant is from its original function, this court has never allowed petitioners to use the warrant in the manner sought to address the substantive constitutionality of the enacted law … Furthermore, we have made clear that the status quo warrant is not a replacement for declarative and imperative relief. See Detzner vs. Anstead, 256 So. 3d 820, 823 (Friday 2018).”
In her opinion, Sasso does not directly address whether the contract and its approval are out of scope, but the type of application is not appropriate for the request.