Gaming companies placed a $62 million bet against Florida voters. Don’t let them win | Editorial

Consider yourself warned, Florida. The door has been flung wide open for more gambling and everyone is scrambling to get a piece of the action.

How else to explain this astonishing piece of news: Gambling interests pumped a whopping $62 million in political contributions last month into groups and efforts that could influence the future of sports betting and casino gambling via ballot initiatives in 2022, according to a Miami Herald story.

With that kind of money on the table, the potential market in Florida must be huge. No doubt much of this interest springs from the Legislature’s easy approval this year of a $500 million gambling deal negotiated between the Gov. Ron Desantis and the Seminole Tribe.

Out-of-state, sports-gaming companies FanDuel and DraftKings are each in for a cool $10 million, money they put into a political committee pushing to expand online sports betting across the state. They were iced out of the Seminole deal.

The Las Vegas Sands, a powerful new player, dropped $17 million into a political committee linked to two ballot issues for more casinos. Sources told the Herald that the company is interested in purchasing existing parimutuel licenses to open casinos in Jacksonville and other northern Florida spots.

Miami’s Magic City Casino anted up $15 million for its own political committee, official purpose unspecified. And the Seminole Tribe, winner of the last round of Gambling Gone Wild in this state, put $10 million into yet another a political committee, mostly likely to defend its crown.

Contribution cap

It’s as if the statewide amendment that requires voter approval for casino gambling expansion — approved in 2018 with 71 percent of the vote — never happened at all.

The timing of this slew of cash isn’t a coincidence. A new law was supposed to go into effect July 1 to limit contributions for signature-gathering — a requirement to get a proposed amendment on the ballot — to a paltry $3,000 per organization. But a lawsuit was filed, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the law just as it was about to go into effect.

And don’t forget, the push to impose this contribution cap came from Republicans seeking to make it harder to get so-called “citizen initiatives” on ballots. If they’d known the bill might harm big gambling interests — which they embraced wholeheartedly in the last legislative session — they probably would have carved out an exception.

It’s not completely clear yet which organization wants what next year. But the Miami Herald sketched it out this way: FanDuel and DraftKings are looking for their own online sports betting deal to be approved by Florida voters. The Seminole Tribe wants to be ready to defend its 30-year gaming deal, which is still awaiting approval from the federal government. The Sands organization is eyeing casinos in nothern Florida. And Magic City’s stake is designed to make sure parimutuels have a place at the table.

If that sounds like the state is being carved up like a roast at Sunday dinner, well, we agree.

United opposition

The staunch opposition to more casinos in Miami-Dade County seems to have turned much of the interest farther north for now. We’re grateful for the wall of opposition here, led by Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, developer Armando Codina and Miami billionaire Norman Braman. Their united front over the years, and especially in the last year, has no doubt blunted the effects of this effort to undermine the voice of the people.

We don’t have a casino at the Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach or at the Trump resort in Doral, despite worries about that during the legislative session. The local governments in Miami Beach and Doral have both passed ordinances against that kind of development.

But keep your eye on that one. The door isn’t closed there.

And don’t expect any help from your governor, who already is looking longingly toward Washington. DeSantis met in March with Miriam Adelson, who now controls the Las Vegas Sands since her husband, Sheldon Adelson, died. That’s right about the time the big gambling deal was being hammered out.

But more gambling is not yet a done deal in this state. Getting a constitutional amendment onto the ballot in Florida isn’t easy. And any amendment must pass with at least 60 percent of the vote. No matter how much money the gambling companies throw at Florida, voters still have the final say.

In the end, the biggest bet the gambling industry is making is on your complacency.