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After the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to stay a lower court’s ruling in late October, Sports Betting was once again deemed legal in the state of Florida and the 30-year Seminole compact with the state was valid again.
Florida is the third most populous state in America so the multi-billion dollar question immediately became: when will sports betting return to Florida? We now know thanks to two insider reports.
Radio host Andy Slater reported on Wednesday morning his sources are telling him the Seminole Hard Rock Sportsbook and Casino will resume sports betting in Florida “within the next 2-3 weeks.”
Not only that, Slater reports “Seminole Tribe of Florida announced they’ll be opening in-person sportsbooks and craps/roulette tables on Dec. 7” but that the Seminole Hard Rock Bet app will begin taken bets before that.
Being down here in Southwest Florida, I reached out to a colleague with insider knowledge of the situation.
He tells me it will all happen even sooner than Slater’s report. My well-connected source with direct knowledge of the situation relayed to me that the Seminole Hard Rock will have live Craps, Roulette, and in-person Sports Betting (a live sportsbook) by the 1st of December.
West Flagler Associates (WFA) is expected to appeal the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision before the November 20th deadline to appeal. However, signals indicate that appeal will fail and that was enough for the proverbial ‘green light’ to get all of this back in motion.
We did have legal sports betting here in Florida for six glorious weeks back in 2021. I was on a HEATER for those six weeks, of course. That was before West Flagler Associates began their drawn out legal battle in an attempt to take down the historic Seminole compact signed between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Seminole tribe who operate the Seminole Hard Rock casinos.
It has been the citizens of Florida, myself included, caught in the crossfire over the past two years as legal challenges were mounted by various parties attempting to get their ‘slice of the pie.’ But it seems dark skies are finally clearing and we Floridians will soon be able to start legally sports betting once again.