Supreme Court to Hear Florida Legal Sports Betting Challenge in June

Things are about to get a little clearer regarding the Florida legal sports betting industry, thanks to an announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to at least discuss the case of West Flagler and Associates and their challenge to current Florida legal sports betting law. June 13 is the date that has been identified for the potentially ground-breaking discussion. As it stands, residents are unable to access the full slate of our best sports betting sites.

The decision announced Wednesday doesn’t necessarily mean that the Court has agreed to hear the full case; it just means that it will decide whether to hear the full case through a writ of certiorari or decline to hear it in its entirety.

The best news is that West Flagler’s efforts to curtail current Florida sports betting laws, which essentially give the Seminole Tribe exclusive right to control legal gambling in the state, will finally be given the green light to proceed or a final red light to stop its pursuit of an opportunity to join the limited Florida legal sports betting family.

The issue at hand

Florida, like many other states in America, provides a virtual monopoly over legal gambling in its jurisdictions to tribes that call the state home. In Florida, it is the Seminole Tribe, which owns and runs the Hard Rock Bet sportsbook that has control over the gambling scene.

The “hub-and-spoke” model for the Seminole’s platform is part of the renewed 2021 compact that the tribe signed with Gov. Ron DeSantis. It gives them the right to launch and provide legal mobile sports betting throughout the state, with servers for the platform located on their lands.

That “hub-and-spoke model" continues to be at the heart of the controversy and legal challenge. State and federal challenges exist to the assertion that the model actually meets the standards set out in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. More specifically, it is how gambling dollars change hands in relation to the hub-and-spoke model.

It is a matter of the compact’s authorization of gaming outside of tribal lands that is being challenged. Plenty of residents of the state would prefer to be able to access more of our best sports betting apps.

West Flagler and other opponents to the Seminole monopoly even cited Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s statement in January that said, “If the compact authorized the Tribe to conduct off-reservation gaming operations, either directly or by deeming off-reservation gaming operations to somehow be on-reservation, then the compact would likely violate the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).”

At least there will be a conclusion… maybe?

The battle between the Seminoles and other Florida entities hoping to have a stake in the Florida legal sports betting scene has been going on for years with decisions going back-and-forth for each side.

With the June 13 hearing, at least a decision on the matter will be made, and there will be ultimate clarity around where non-tribal groups stand in relation to their efforts to join the Florida legal sports betting fray.

It is more likely that the Supreme Court will deny West Flagler’s attempt to circumvent the Seminole monopoly and that the Tribe will maintain total control of the state’s legal gambling platform. It exhausts many avenues that West Flagler and Associates and other opposition forces have.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the battle is over. West Flagler and other groups could still appeal to the state Supreme Court to challenge the language of the compact between the state and the Seminole Tribe. For what it is worth, the state Supreme Court has already rejected such an attempt to limit the powers of the Tribal Compact.

Many forces hope that West Flagler succeeds in its attempt to challenge the powers of the Seminole Tribe, including FanDuel, DraftKings, and the other heavy hitters in the U.S. legal sports betting industry. 

If the West Flagler challenge is indeed successful, it all but assures that the battle will be dragged out further, possibly through 2025, with no real conclusion on the matter, but there is little doubting the significance of the June 13 hearing.