Senate to open negotiations at Thursday gambling conference – Sun … – Sun Sentinel (blog)

The Florida Senate will open the bidding in negotiations between House and Senate members over new gambling legislation.

A conference including six state representatives and six state senators will take place at 4 p.m. Thursday, during which the Senate will make a formal offer to House negotiators, state Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, confirmed.

Galvano is the conference chairman and is experienced in gambling legislation. He did not respond to questions about what exactly the Senate would offer.

Both the Senate and House passed gambling bills earlier in the legislative session, but the bills are vastly different, hence the negotiations.

The Senate bill would grant the Seminole Tribe the right to offer craps and roulette at its casinos; pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties would get blackjack; and pari-mutuels across the state would win the right to have slot machines if county voters approve of it. So far, eight counties outside of Broward and Miami-Dade, where slots are already legal, have done so.

The Senate bill would also allow pari-mutuels to stop racing animals and simply operate as casinos.

The House bill does none of those things. In fact, it states that pari-mutuels halting races would violate an agreement between the Seminole Tribe and the state.

That agreement is at the heart of both versions of the gambling legislation. A new agreement with the tribe is needed because provisions of the original 2010 deal that granted the Seminoles the right to offer blackjack have lapsed. The tribe continues to have the game because of a court order.

The state allowed pari-mutuels to operate designated player games such as three-card poker. The tribe maintained that these games were too similar to blackjack, thus violating the agreement. A court agreed, and a provision of the agreement allows the tribe to offer blackjack for the complete, 20-year duration of the agreement in the case of such a violation.

The tribe has come out against both the Senate and House versions of the gambling legislation. It wants the craps and roulette offered in the Senate version, but does not favor the increased competition the bill would create. And the House version has the tribe paying more money to the state but getting no new games in return.

dsweeney@SunSentinel.com, 954-356-4605 or Twitter @Daniel_Sweeney

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Senate to open negotiations at Thursday gambling conference - Sun ... - Sun Sentinel (blog)