Florida kicks off two months of gambling legislative squabbling

Call us crazy, but we think we’ve figured out a way to make Florida’s annual gambling legislation derby a whole lot more entertaining.

Two weeks ago, Florida’s state Senate introduced the 2018 version of its omnibus gambling legislation. Among other things, SB 840 would approve daily fantasy sports operations and allow greyhound- and horseracing tracks to decouple, aka abandon racing while keeping their more lucrative slots parlors and cardrooms.

The bill would also allow those cardrooms to continue to offer the controversial designated-player games that the state’s Seminole Tribe believes run contrary to the agreement they signed last July with Gov. Rick Scott.

As such, in order to get the tribe’s support, the legislature will likely have to sweeten the Seminoles’ pot, possibly by adding the exclusive right to offer roulette and craps at the tribe’s six gaming venues in the state, as was offered in the 2015 gaming compact the tribe inked with Scott but which was never ratified by the legislature.