US Supreme Court rejects plea to hear Florida online sports betting case
The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear the Florida online sports betting case Monday, one of the last remaining legal hurdles challenging the Seminole Tribe’s monopoly on online gambling in the state.
The rejection was announced after the justices discussed the case during a private conference Thursday. It was the most likely result, as the Supreme Court rejects over 95% of cases put before it. Still, some experts believed that the court might have taken interest due to the ongoing controversy surrounding the legality of online sports betting and its national implications.
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The rejection of the case now paves the way for sports betting to continue unchallenged in Florida for the next several years.
“The Seminole Tribe of Florida applauds today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to decline consideration of the case involving the Tribe’s Gaming Compact with the State of Florida,” Gary Bitner, a spokesperson for the Tribe, said Monday. “It means members of the Seminole Tribe and all Floridians can count on a bright future made possible by the Compact.”
The court wrote that Justice Brett Kavanaugh would have granted the petition for certiorari filed by West Flagler Associates, the group of pari-mutuels that has long sought to bring online sports betting to a halt. Kavanaugh had previously made comments suggesting he saw merit in the case, particularly the idea that West Flagler and other gambling companies may have been treated unfairly because of the monopoly the state granted to the Tribe.
The Seminole Tribe achieved its monopoly on online sports betting in Florida under a gaming deal, called a compact, with Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021 that hinged on the idea that all online sports betting takes place on tribal lands because the servers are located there, and therefore is not a violation of a federal law which relegates gambling to tribal lands.
The decision “will have repercussions across the country,” Steve Bittenbender, an analyst for FloridaBet.com, said in a statement, by opening a door for states “to expand upon those agreements.”
