Sport betting and gambling by wildpixel via iStock for WMNF News.

By Jim Saunders ©2025 The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — The state wants a Leon County circuit judge to toss out a lawsuit that alleges a deal allowing the Seminole Tribe of Florida to offer online sports betting violates a 2018 constitutional amendment aimed at limiting casino gambling.

Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office last week filed a 34-page motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was filed in April by Protect the Constitution, LLC.

The motion raised a series of arguments, including that Protect the Constitution does not have legal standing to pursue the challenge and that tribe-run sports betting is allowed under the constitutional amendment.

Gov. Ron DeSantis reached the gambling deal, known as a compact, with the tribe in 2021. The deal, which was ratified by the Legislature, allowed the tribe to accept mobile sports bets placed anywhere in the state, with the wagers run through servers on tribal land. Such gambling started in late 2023.

The deal, which also included such things as allowing the tribe to offer craps and roulette games at its casinos, called for the state to receive a minimum of $2.5 billion over the first five years and possibly billions of dollars more throughout the pact.

“That agreement ensures that hundreds of millions of dollars flow to the tribe each year — money that supports the tribe’s efforts to improve every aspect of life on tribal lands,” the state’s attorneys wrote in last week’s motion. “The state benefits as well, with hundreds of millions more in annual revenue sharing accruing to the state. Plaintiff’s constitutional challenge to the 2021 compact fails as a matter of law.”

The 2018 constitutional amendment said it “ensures that Florida voters shall have the exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling” in the state. It required a vote through a citizens’ initiative “for casino gambling to be authorized under Florida law.”

But at least part of the dispute about whether sports betting needed voter approval centers on the sports bets running through servers on tribal property. The constitutional amendment, which received backing from the Seminoles, included an exception for gambling that takes place on tribal lands.

The amendment said, “nothing herein shall be construed to limit the ability of the state or Native American tribes to negotiate gaming compacts pursuant to the Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act for the conduct of casino gambling on tribal lands, or to affect any existing gambling on tribal lands pursuant to compacts executed by the state and Native American tribes pursuant to IGRA.” The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or IGRA, plays a key role in tribal gambling issues across the country.

Last week’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit contended that the sports-betting arrangement falls within the exception for activities on tribal lands and disputed that sports betting met a definition in the constitutional amendment for casino gambling. It said sports betting was not typically found in casinos in 2018, when the amendment passed.

Also, the motion said, “online sports betting is validly addressed in the 2021 compact, and compacts are exempted from the citizen-initiative process.”

“Casino gambling or not, sports betting was properly authorized by the compact,” the motion said.

The lawsuit, which seeks a declaratory judgment and an injunction, names as defendants the state, the Florida Gaming Control Commission and the commission’s members. It identified Protect the Constitution as a Delaware company and said each of its members “offers products in the state of Florida and has suffered harm, including reduced revenue, as a result of the legislation purporting to authorize ‘casino gambling’ throughout the state.” It did not name Protect the Constitution’s members.

“Today, online sports betting occurs throughout the state of Florida,” the lawsuit said. “But no citizens’ initiative has ever been held to provide authorization. And the people of Florida have never been allowed to exercise their constitutional right to decide whether sports betting should be authorized throughout the state.”

The lawsuit came after the pari-mutuel companies West Flagler Associates and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp. filed unsuccessful challenges in state and federal courts to sports betting. In a state-court case, the companies asked the Florida Supreme Court to strike down the part of the compact that allowed sports betting, arguing it violated the constitutional amendment.

But the Supreme Court in March 2024 rejected the companies’ petition for what is known as a “writ of quo warranto,” which means “by what authority” in Latin. The Supreme Court decision did not address the merits of the lawsuit but said “quo warranto is not and has never been, the proper vehicle to obtain a declaration as to the substantive constitutionality of an enacted law. For that reason, we deny the petition because the relief that petitioners seek is beyond what the writ of quo warranto provides.”

The Protect the Constitution lawsuit goes through the more-typical legal process in circuit court. The case is assigned to Judge Jonathan Sjostrom.