Full casino gambling in Florida by end of year?

[bocablkr]

From today's Sun-Sentinal:

Ask the governor: Why I want to negotiate with tribe


Q. I believe it's only a matter of time before we will have full casino gambling. Why would we not negotiate with the American Indians and use the profits to fund real insurance and property tax reform?

A. I don't know about the first part [of your question]. I'm not sure about that.

But it's only smart for us to negotiate with the [Seminole] Tribe. Two governmental entities have input in this process ... it's the U.S. Department of Interior and the state of Florida.

If I were to decide not to negotiate with the Seminoles, more than likely the Department of Interior would do so directly. And the effect of that would be that we couldn't negotiate for any of the resources, the monies, to come to the state to be used for the people as a whole. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So, I have indicated I am willing to negotiate, and we have actually begun [the process] now. My chief of staff, George LeMieux, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, is heading that up ... so that's moving forward.

In addition, I met with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Dick Kempthorn, and expressed our desire to negotiate as a state with the Seminoles, and he was very respectful of that. I don't know the exact time frame ... maybe by the end of the year we'll have some resolution, if not sooner.

Compiled by Tallahassee Bureau Chief Linda Kleindienst.

[flafishy]

I think it only means that the Indians will be allowed to upgrade their slot machines to what the Broward parimutuels now have.

[bocablkr]

I think that is a given - they want more.

[soulvamp]

Do you read into this that they're going to get more?

[Truthiness24]

It's incremental -- they're looking for more & better slots now.

The rest seems like a matter of time to me -- but not the end of the year.

[CybrPunk]

The Seminoles have already taken the steps to petition for full Class III gambling based on the fact that Class III slot machines have been allowed into Broward pari-mutuel facilities. The Seminoles want to press the fact that Class III gambling is Class III gambling, which could open the doors for full table games as allowed by the Federal Indian Gaming Commission. There's no distinction in the Indian gaming laws that separate Class III slots from Class III table games.

This has been an issue for some time now and it's just recently that it became public knowledge. In the past the governor had nearly let the timeframe pass where the tribe was willing to negotiate.

I'd fathom a guess that the inability of the Senate to produce some form of tax relief has spurred this discussion. Had the state been able to find a way to offer property tax relief I highly doubt that the governor would be entering into these discussions.

[dozer]

Full casino gambling would really rock South Florida. It would probably also kill Atlantic City. But I don't know if it would be so good for our area.

I say Crist kills it.

[nineinchal]

It wouldn't surprise me. Giving the state (democrat) governor access to revenue like this? This is like a pill to cure all of their ills, so they think.

No income tax and defer another real estate tax increase. All the politicians can say "see, we didn't raise your taxes"(yet).

How could there not be full casino gambling?

[bocablkr]

The governor is a Republican.

[flafishy]

And there are a lot of fundamentalists in this state who would be pretty pissed off about it.