Florida slot-machine fight is likely to end up in court

Jackie Hallifax

Wednesday, May 11, 2005 | 9:58 a.m.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Slot machines generated a lot of conversation during the legislative session, but lawmakers couldn't agree on how to tax or even define them.

Now the pari-mutuel industry is headed to court to get some answers. And that could even lead to a special session.

"We had a clear mandate from the voters," said Daniel Adkins, who has spearheaded the effort to get slots in South Florida tracks and jai alai frontons. "I guess somebody didn't want a bill."

In fact, plenty of people don't want to see slot machines installed in South Florida tracks and jai alai frontons -- including Gov. Jeb Bush.

House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, and Senate President Tom Lee, R-Brandon, were also less than enthusiastic about the issue.

"I just don't like gambling," Bense said last week. "Sorry."

But voters approved an amendment to the Florida Constitution in November that gave Broward and Miami-Dade counties the option of having slot machines at seven tracks and jai-alai frontons.

The pari-mutuel industry sold the ballot measure to voters by promising hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue could be raised for schools across the state.

Four months later, voters in Miami-Dade decided not to have slots and voters in Broward approved them. It was the first day of the two-month legislative session.

In the Capitol, lawmakers went to work on how to tax slot machines, how to regulate them -- even how to define them.

That last issue proved to be pivotal.

The Senate backed a bill that would allow the pari-mutuels to install traditional slots like those found in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. The House, however, wanted to allow only bingo-based electronic gambling machines, like those already found in several Indian casinos around Florida.

Complicating the matter is a federal law that lets Indian tribes negotiate for any kind of gambling allowed elsewhere in a state. Both the Seminole and the Miccosukee tribes have notified Bush that they want to start negotiations -- and they believe the November vote gives them the right to upgrade to Las Vegas-style slot machines.

But Bush said it would be hard for either side to negotiate without a state law that spells out the details of what will be allowed in the tracks and jai alai frontons.

"I'm not sure how far the negotiations will go now because I think they will also want to know what the rules of engagement will be," he said Monday.

Federal law also puts a 180-day deadline on negotiations. If negotiations fail to produce an agreement after six months, federal law says tribes can seek to bypass a state by going to court and, ultimately, the federal Department of the Interior.

Jim Shore, general counsel for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, said the Seminoles are waiting to see what happens between the pari-mutuel industry and the state.

"We're waiting for the dust to settle," Shore said Monday.

The pari-mutuel industry, meanwhile, argues that the ballot measure can go into effect without any legislative action. The industry just needs a judge to see it that way too.

"We will be definitely going to court," Adkins, an executive with the Hollywood Greyhound Track, said Tuesday. "Relatively soon."

Bush said that lawmakers could be back in the Capitol working on a bill in a special session if a judge rules that the Legislature has to take action.

In the House, Rep. Randy Johnson, R-Celebration, was delighted the Legislature fell short of passing a slots bill -- but he also said it takes time for lawmakers to figure out the complexities of regulating an industry.

Carey Theil, head of Grey2K USA, a national group that opposes greyhound racing across the country, also kept close track of developments in the Florida Capitol.

Like Johnson, Theil said he thought state lawmakers made a good-faith effort at writing a law -- and he was happy they fell short.

"The fact that they simply didn't rubber-stamp what the racetracks wanted I think is a victory for the people of Florida," Theil said.

Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale, said he didn't think a judge would give the industry a carte blanche to install slots. At the most, Geller said, a judge might give the Legislature a warning to do something or leave it to the courts to decide.

"I don't see anything happening real quickly," he said.