The Seminole Tribe of Florida has agreed to pay $3.1 billion to the state over seven years in exchange for adding craps and roulette to its current casino operations, under an agreement announced Monday night by Gov. Rick Scott.
The deal is believed to be the largest tribal revenue-sharing agreement in the country, and is triple the current $1 billion the Seminoles have paid to the state over the past five years for the exclusive rights to operate “banked” card games, including blackjack.
The agreement regarding the card games — part of a larger, 20-year deal known as a “compact” — expired this summer, sending Scott and the tribe back to the negotiating table. The new deal requires legislative approval, and even before the ink was dry on the agreement, some legislators were questioning the possibility of its ultimate success.
Under the deal, the tribe would be allowed to have blackjack, craps and roulette at all of its existing seven facilities, but cannot expand its operations for 20 years, under the pact signed Monday by Scott and Seminole Chairman James Billie.
But the tribe is giving up its monopoly on blackjack and is ceding its stronghold on slots.
Under the agreement reached in 2010, slot machines anywhere but at the existing pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties or on other tribal lands would invalidate the compact and lose the state big bucks. Giving blackjack or other table games to the Broward and Miami-Dade racinos would reduce the tribe’s payments to the state, and the racinos have not offered the games.
The new deal would allow the Miami-Dade and Broward racinos to add blackjack. And the agreement would allow up to 750 slot machines and 750 “instant racing” machines — which appear like slots but operate differently — to be phased in at the Palm Beach Kennel Club and at a new facility in Miami.