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Legal challenge to Seminole gambling deal dropped, Hard Rock Bet app has new offering

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Legal challenge to Seminole gambling deal dropped, Hard Rock Bet app has new offering

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It took years, but the legal battle between pari-mutuel companies and the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s gambling compact with the state is finally over in what the Tribe called a “win-win agreement” in a release Monday.

The pari-mutuel companies West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp., who have consistently lost in their challenges against the sports betting plan, agreed “not to bring or support any future legal challenge to the Seminole Tribe’s gaming operations.”

As part of the agreement, the Seminole Tribe will add jai alai, provided by one of the West Flagler affiliates, to its Hard Rock Bet mobile app by early next year.

“This is truly a win-win agreement for the Seminole Tribe and West Flagler,” Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming, said. “This agreement establishes a relationship of collaboration among the Seminole Tribe and West Flagler in the State of Florida. Rather than engaging in years of additional litigation, this agreement will allow the parties to work together to promote Jai Alai, which has played an important role in Florida’s gaming landscape for nearly 100 years.”

Is sports gambling legal in Florida?

Yes, but only at casinos on Seminole Tribe lands or through the Seminole Tribe’s mobile app.

In 2021, the Seminole Tribe struck a 30-year deal (known as a gaming compact) with the state to allow sports betting on tribal lands and also allow anyone in Florida to gamble with a mobile app hosted on tribal land, in exchange for paying the state about $20 billion, including $2.5 billion over the first five years. The contract also allows the Seminoles to add craps and roulette, previously prohibited, to their Florida casinos. Slot machines were already allowed there but illegal anywhere else.

The compact was put on hold for more than two years during the legal back-and-forth. The Seminoles briefly launched the app but shut it down after pari-mutuel owners filed a lawsuit alleging it violated federal law and would cause a “significant and potentially devastating impact” on their operations. That two-year fight moved through several courts as the tribe moved forward on in-person bets but the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately refused in June to take up the companies’ appeal.

In November 2023 the tribe quietly relaunched the app and restricted its use to people who had physically visited a Hard Rock or Seminole Casino to earn “Unity points,” as an effort to sidestep the “anywhere in Florida” problem. In-person sports gambling rolled out at some Seminole-controlled casinos on Dec. 7, 2023, in a massive star-studded celebration and the restrictions were removed from the app, despite the ongoing legal battle.

What is pari-mutuel gambling?

Pari-mutuel gambling is a system where all bets are put together in a pool, the “house” takes a cut, and the final payout isn’t determined until the betting is closed and payoff odds are calculated. Pari-mutuel betting is used for jai alai, horse racing, and sporting events when participants finish in a ranked order.

The groups challenging the gambling compact were West Flagler Associates, LTD, Bonita-Fort Myers Corporation, Southwest Florida Enterprises, Inc. and Isadore Havenick of the Havenick family, which owns the companies.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with the Seminole Tribe in support of their gaming operations in Florida and to promote Jai Alai, which has been a critical component of Florida’s gaming industry since the 1920s,” Havenick said. “We are proud that Jai Alai will be featured on the Hard Rock Bet app and we look forward to developing a strong partnership with the Seminole Tribe.”

What is jai alai?

Jai alai is a fast-paced game that originated in the Basque region of Spain and thrived in Florida after the first professional fronton (stadium) opened in Miami in the 1920s. The sport is played with two teams of two players, each with elongated, curved, handheld baskets (cestas), who catch and hurl a small, hard ball (pelota) in one continuous motion to whip across the fronton and bounce off three walls and the floor. Imagine four-person handball that’s been weaponized.

Since one of the ways to lose points is to hold the ball, the game never stops moving and jai alai pelotas easily reach speeds over 100 mph, making the game exciting to watch and occasionally dangerous to play. The sport once held the world record for ball speed with one reaching 188 mph.

Jai alai — and betting on jai alai — was extremely popular in Florida up through the ’80s but interest waned when tribal casinos and other forms of gambling became popular. The Florida Legislature, in a bid to prop up the sport, passed HB 1059 to allow poker games (cardrooms) in pari-mutuel facilities such as jai alai frontons and horse and greyhound racing tracks, which helped the locations stay afloat but didn’t help the sport.

There are now only two jai alai frontons in the U.S.: one in Miami and one in Dania Beach. But amateur teams still play. St. Petersburg opened the nation’s first public jai alai court in 2008.

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