A federal court paved the way last week for the Seminole tribe’s Hard Rock brand to offer sports-betting throughout Florida. If the deal holds, you’ll be able to place sports bets from anywhere in the state.
What you won’t be able to choose is with whom you place your bet.
That’s because the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis decided to grant this multi-billion-dollar opportunity to just one company — run by a group that showers them with campaign cash.
I have no problem with sports-betting. Most states already allow it. And I think Americans should be free to spend their hard-earned money as they please, especially in a state that already offers gobs of other gambling options, from full-blown casinos to a state-run lottery.
Heck, I’m even a fan of the tribe’s Hard Rock properties. The hotels are posh. Their theming is sleek. The service and restaurants are top-notch.
Yet it’s still a terrible idea for Florida to give the tribe a monopoly on sports-betting throughout the entire state of Florida.
Why? Because government-granted monopolies are almost always bad ideas. They don’t just stifle competition. They literally outlaw it.
When only one company can peddle a product, regardless of whether its offering the best deal, consumers lose.
Even if I like the tribe’s Hard Rock brand, I don’t support giving them a license to exclusively mine the wallets of my fellow Floridians.
Then again, I wasn’t the beneficiary of millions of campaign dollars — the way the governor and legislators who approved this deal were.
Over the past two and a half years, the tribe cut two checks for $1 million apiece to Ron DeSantis’ political committee, another $2 million to the Republican Party of Florida and hundreds of thousands of dollars to committees controlled by the legislators who approved the monopoly deal.
They tribe even gave the hapless Democrats $200,000 or so to help ensure bipartisan support.
In fact, only one member in the entire senate, former Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes, opposed the deal, saying: “We should have free and open markets wherever we can. And if you don’t have to provide a monopoly to one vendor, why would we do that?”
I think his question was supposed to be rhetorical. But other legislators were basically like: Because we got paid off!
About $250,000 of the tribe’s donations were made to the Republican Party of Florida just a few weeks before lawmakers approved the deal. Millions more were donated after.
The politicians claim taxpayers benefit because the tribe will pay $2.5 billion over the next five years for the right to offer sports-betting. But taxpayers might’ve collected even more if lawmakers opened up the opportunity to other competitors.
Still, the most bananas part of this story is the twisted nonsense the politicians used to justify its legality.
See, sports-betting is supposedly illegal throughout Florida. So to justify this deal, lawmakers argued the statewide sports-betting that they clearly approved would actually only take place on tribal land where the bet-processing computer servers would be located.
In other words, they argued that, even if you place a a bet on your phone at home in Orlando, you’re actually placing a bet on tribal land. The Mad Hatter would be proud.
They called this system a “hub and spokes” model. But giving it a name didn’t make it any less ridiculous. In fact, the first judge called it “legal fiction.”
And for good reason. Think about it. If that logic applies, then why can’t Floridians gamble anywhere in the state on any game they like — as long as the servers processing the bets are located somewhere where gambling’s legal?
Why couldn’t you play poker on your phone in Kissimmee, as long as the poker server is based in a card room in Daytona? Or blackjack on your laptop in Casselberry, as long as the servers taking your money and dealing your virtual cards are housed somewhere like the Miccosukee’s tribal casino deep in the Everglades?
Apparently, the only place where this magical “hub and spokes” model works is on the same tribal land that pumps out campaign checks.
The federal appeals court that overruled the first judge last week to grant the tribe a monopoly focused more on whether the tribe had the right to offer sports-betting under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act than whether this “hub and spokes” argument made any sense.
That’s why the issue may end up at the United States Supreme Court. Two other gambling interests in South Florida, a casino and card room, have vowed to appeal. They argue that the deal improperly represents a “blueprint for expanding gaming outside of Indian lands.” Of course they’re right.
Some gambling opponents have argued that statewide sports gambling shouldn’t be allowed by anyone without a statewide vote, since voters passed an no-casinos amendment years ago. But there’s debate over whether sports-betting actually qualifies.
Either way, the principles should be the same:
If Florida politicians want to try to legalize statewide sports-betting, then do it — and allow any qualified competitor to enter the space.
If they want to keep it illegal, they can do that too.
The one thing they shouldn’t do is precisely what they did — open the market to only one, deep-pocketed interest that has showered them with campaign checks. That’s bad for consumers, for anyone who believes in free markets and for anyone who still had a shred of optimism about good governing.
smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com
