Tribe, casino operator split

The Seminole Tribe will run the Tampa casino itself after severing 20-year ties with Pan American & Associates.

By JEFF TESTERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2000

TAMPA -- The 20-year partnership between the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the management company that made millions running the tribe's Tampa casino comes to an end today.

Tribal leaders voted earlier this month not to renew their contract with Pan American & Associates. Instead, the tribe itself will run the 50,000-square-foot casino off Interstate 4.

The Seminoles were the first Indian tribe in the nation to open a gambling casino. But the tribe always relied on non-Indian management companies to direct casino operations. Now the tribe controls all five casinos it owns.

"This is a trend across the country as tribes become more sophisticated," said Buddy Levy, general counsel for Pan American.

"In the beginning, they needed our financial help and our expertise. Now, they've reached a point where they don't need us any more."

The tribe relies largely on revenue generated by electronic slot machines, high-stakes bingo and low-stakes poker games. Gambling finances about 80 percent of the tribe's $120-million annual budget.

The casino takeovers should put even more money in tribal coffers. The tribe paid management fees estimated as high as $26-million a year to Pan American, and fees as high as $34.2-million a year to Seminole Management Associates, which ran its Hollywood casino.

The fees allowed Pan Am managing partner Jim Clare to buy an $840,000 mansion on Bayshore Boulevard, as well as a handful of other homes in the Tampa Bay area. A former petroleum company official, Clare listed his net worth in 1994 at $7-million.

The tribe's announcement of self-sufficiency in the casino business comes as the Seminoles seek federal approval for Las Vegas-style games such as craps and roulette and as a federal investigation into Seminole gambling activities intensifies.

Seminole leaders are banking on new rule-making by U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to settle a dispute between Florida officials and the tribe over a gambling compact. After three state initiatives in which voters said no to casino gambling, the state has refused to negotiate with the Seminoles on a gambling compact, even when the tribe offered a cut of 45 percent of the profits. The tribe sued to force compact negotiations, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1996 that the state enjoyed immunity from such tribal suits.

Babbitt then proposed new rules to dissolve the impasse. Florida Attorney General Robert Butterworth sued in federal court in April 1999, setting the scene for months of litigation that could end at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime, a task force of agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Treasury Department continues to investigate Seminole gaming activities.

The investigation led last year to the federal indictment of Lauderhill cigar importer Steve Weil, Tamarac lawyer Yale Garber and two other men on money laundering charges. They were accused of conspiring to launder $425,000 in cash purported to be the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.