Florida's Supreme Court gives green light to gambling amendment

The court ruled 4-2 that the amendment’s wording was not misleading and sticks to one subject. However, suppoters of this measure will still need to gather more than 700,000 signatures to make the 2018 ballot. They had submitted 74,626 signatures as of Thursday, according to the state Division of Elections.

Both the House and Senate have passed gambling bills this session, which ends May 5. The two bills are vastly different, forcing the two chambers to go into a conference to iron out the details.

At stake are elements in the Senate version of the bill that would give craps and roulette to the Seminole Tribe, blackjack to pari-mutuels in Broward and Miami-Dade counties and slot machines to counties in which voters have approved them. None of those changes are included in the House gambling bill.

Eight counties other than Broward and Miami-Dade, where they are already legal, have approved slot machines. Palm Beach County voters approved allowing slot machines at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, but the state constitution specifically mentions only Broward and Miami-Dade counties as being able to have slots.

The constitution doesn’t say whether other counties can, and whether the Broward and Miami-Dade language means that only those counties can have slot machines is the subject of another state Supreme Court case, a decision in which could come at any time.

It’s unclear whether a law passed by the Legislature before the November election would remain in place. That ambiguity over whether the amendment could be applied retroactively was the chief issue cited by the two justices who dissented from the state Supreme Court decision.