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Letter to the editor

Odds favor upgrade to Vegas-style slots

The state needs to work out a deal with the Seminole Tribe to share in the higher profits.

By STEVE HUETTEL
Published June 29, 2007

Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa offers Class II slots, a bingo-style game where players compete with one another instead playing against the house.
	[Times photo: Daniel Wallace]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Daniel Wallace] The gambling floor of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino is a constant blur of lights and beeping machines.

Revenues at Florida Indian casinos shot up 67 percent in the past two years to nearly $1.6-billion, pushing the state past Minnesota to become the fifth-richest Indian gaming state in the United States.

That meteoric growth is only poised to accelerate, with federal officials recently giving Gov. Charlie Crist 60 days to cut a deal for the Seminole Tribe of Florida to operate popular Vegas-style slot machines.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne wrote last week that if Crist doesn't reach an agreement, his agency could give the tribe the right to operate slots.

That would keep Florida from receiving a share of slot revenues and preclude the state from having any regulatory oversight.

Seminole negotiators and Crist staffers were meeting to make an agreement on the tribe's gaming rights before Kempthorne's nudge.

"It seems like things are moving in the right direction," said Gary Bitner, a spokesman for the Seminole Tribe in Hollywood. The letter, he said, will help "push the state to get it done."

George LeMieux, Crist's chief of staff and chief negotiator, told the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale he thinks an agreement can reached by the mid-August deadline.

"It has to," he said. "Because if we don't, the Seminoles will get increased gaming without any revenue to Florida."

The tribe's seven casinos rake in the vast majority of Florida Indian gaming revenue, estimated at $1.56-billion last year in the Indian Gaming Industry Report published this week. The Miccosukee Tribe operates the state's only other Indian casino, located in Miami.

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos in Tampa and Hollywood are by far the biggest moneymakers. Together, they generate more than $500-million in annual profits, according to a court filing last year.

The Seminoles have argued for years that they have the right to offer a full range of gambling at casinos on sovereign tribal land.

But the tribe limited offerings to poker games and Class II slots, a bingo-style game where players compete with one another instead playing against the house.

In 2005, Broward County voters approved letting three race tracks and a jai alai fronton have Vegas-style slots, defined as Class III gaming machines.

The Seminoles contend they're entitled to the more popular slots under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which says tribes can operate the same games allowed elsewhere in a state.

They couldn't reach an agreement with former Gov. Jeb Bush. In January, the Seminoles sued in federal court in Tallahassee to force the Interior Department to allow the Vegas-style slots. The suit is ongoing.

The Class III slots run faster than the bingo machines and are more familiar to gamblers, says David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada.

"All the industry research shows they're more profitable," he says. "If there weren't higher revenues there, I'd be down with a pack of researchers in Florida to see what's up."

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3384.

FAST FACTS: Slot machine differences

• Class II machines, the machines at Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Tampa, are electronic bingo machines made to look like true slots. Gamblers compete against one another, and the casino takes a portion of the amount wagered.
• Class III machines are the traditional Vegas-style slots. They pit the gambler against the casino. They are more profitable because the casino sets the payout.

Indian gaming revenue

Source: Casino City's Indian Gaming Industry Report

[Last modified June 28, 2007, 23:09:39]