Florida Senator files bill to create gaming commission

The 184-page Senate Bill 1198 filed this week by Sen. Maria Sachs, D-Delray Beach, would move that regulatory authority from under the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, where it now resides in the Division of Pari-mutuel Wagering.

It also would create a Gaming Commission made up of five people appointed by the governor, one of whom would have had experience in the gaming industry.

Opponents of gaming expansion fear that such a department would signal just that.

“We have historically opposed creating a new gambling bureaucracy and oppose it in this new bill,” said Paul Seago, Executive Director of No Casinos Inc., a group determined to limit or eliminate legalized gambling in Florida. “You only need a bigger bureaucracy if you have more gambling to regulate.”

But House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, said the proposal made sense to him.

“I’ve always been a proponent of a gaming commission because I think we need a structure outside of the DBPR,” Crisafulli told a group of reporters on Friday. “It goes beyond just licensing.”

Sachs did not return calls seeking comment.

Other than a newly negotiated $3 billion Seminole Tribe gaming compact that opponents see as a veiled expansion of gaming in Florida, it’s the only substantive legislation introduced so far for the 2016 session that starts Jan. 12. There has been talk of filing bills that decouple pari-mutuels from slot machines and buy back permits from failing pari-mutuels, but nothing filed as of Tuesday.

Any debate over gaming will invite several competing interests – the handful of pari-mutuels in South Florida that have slot machines, greyhound and horse tracks that want to offer slot games to their customers without the burden of putting on live races, tribal casinos that have the market on Vegas-style resorts, and family tourist destinations like Disney World that have resisted competition from gambling palaces.

Some lawmakers, including Crisafulli, said any discussion of gaming must ensure a fair and level playing field for all interests.

“Whether it’s the pari-mutuels, the Indians or Disney World, everybody has stake in the game,” Crisafulli said.

Under Sachs’ bill, the Department of Gaming would have full authority to make, amend and repeal rules relating to gaming operations, to enforce and carry out those rules and collect tax revenue from gaming establishments.

Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, who tried unsuccessfully to push through a gambling overhaul package that included a gaming control board, wonders if there is any justification for creating a new state department without the likelihood of private business interests pushing for the right to build a casino.

One of her bills last year paved the way for a privately owned destination style resort along the lines of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa and Hollywood.

With no such bill in the pipeline this time around, she wondered if there was any need for such a board or reason to justify spending taxpayer dollars creating a new state bureaucracy that would oversee such a venture.

“When we were looking at a private sector option I think it made sense because of the vast level of regulation that would be needed,” Young said.

But if the state is going to stick with the status quo via the gaming compact, or if there is a significant reduction in the gaming footprint in Florida, it wouldn’t make sense.

“With that, it’s worth looking at whether the cost associated with creating a department of gaming or gaming commission would be warranted,” Young said.

The privately owned horse tracks, greyhound tracks and jai alai frontons are regulated by the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, which collects millions of dollars in tax revenue from their slot machines, card rooms and live events each year.

The eight South Florida pari-mutuel properties licensed by the state to have slot machines bring in $42 million a month, with the state getting over a third of that revenue. Last year, they earned $521.6 million, with the state getting $182.5 million.

Card rooms at the state’s 13 greyhound tracks, five frontons, two thoroughbred tracks, two quarter-horse tracks and one harness track raked in another $136 million last year, while the handle from live events was $780 million.

“There hasn’t been to my knowledge a significant outcry that somehow the revenues aren’t being treated properly or the regulations aren’t being enforced,” Young said

On the other hand, Florida is the fourth largest gaming state in the U.S., Young said. “The question is what you want the face of that to look like. What component of that mix do you want and how do you want to market it?”