There will be no decision on whether to legalize sports betting in the state of Florida this year, after a campaign to get the issue on the 2022 ballot acknowledged on Friday that it had failed to obtain the required number of signatures. DraftKings and FanDuel were among the strongest supporters of this campaign, known as Florida Education Champions, donating over 37 million dollars combined to its cause since its launch last summer. The campaign had until February 1 to submit the 891,589 signatures required for the ballot initiative to move forward. However, as of Friday (1/28/22), campaign spokeswoman Christina Johnson reported in a prepared statement that they had just a little more than half of that number – 472,927 valid signatures, according to Florida’s Division of Elections website.
In addition to the legalization of sports betting in the state, the proposed amendment also included that any tax revenues acquired from sports betting would be redirected to something called the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund, created to help supplement Florida’s public school funds. Supporters of the amendment blame the outbreak of the omicron variant late last year for the petition’s low numbers. As stated by Johnson, “while pursuing our mission to add sports betting to the ballot we ran into some serious challenges, but most of all the COVID surge decimated our operations and the ability to collect in-person signatures.”
Unfortunately, petition signatures are only valid for one election year, according to Florida law, and it is not yet known whether the campaign will seek to relaunch a similar effort for the 2024 campaign. According to Johnson, the campaign “will be considering all options in the months ahead to ensure that Floridians have the opportunity to bring safe and legal sports betting to the state, along with hundreds of millions of dollars annually to support public education.” The campaign was spurred into action in the spring of 2021, after Florida governor Ron DeSantis reached a multibillion-dollar agreement with the Seminole Tribe; an agreement which gave them a veritable monopoly on sports betting throughout the state. The agreement, known as a compact, included a “hub-and-spoke” plan,
which would run any mobile bets placed in Florida through computer servers on Seminole Tribe lands. This, according to the compact, meant that all electronic/mobile bets placed anywhere across the state “shall be deemed to be exclusively conducted by the tribe.” A lawsuit was immediately filed by the owners of pari-mutuel casinos Magic City and Bonita Springs Poker Room, stating that the compact violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, a Federal Law that establishes the jurisdictional framework for Indian gaming. In November, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich agreed with them, and invalidated the compact (a decision which is currently being appealed).
A second initiative, backed largely by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, was also vying for placement on the November ballot, but they too fell short of signatures. The committee sponsoring the proposed amendment, which would have allowed North Florida pari-mutuels to offer casino-style games, was about 160,000 signatures short of the required 891,589 as of Friday.
There will be no decision on whether to legalize sports betting in the state of Florida
this year, after a campaign to get the issue on the 2022 ballot acknowledged on
Friday that it had failed to obtain the required number of signatures. DraftKings and
FanDuel were among the strongest supporters of this campaign, known as Florida
Education Champions, donating over 37 million dollars combined to its cause since
its launch last summer. The campaign had until February 1 to submit the 891,589
signatures required for the ballot initiative to move forward. However, as of Friday
(1/28/22), campaign spokeswoman Christina Johnson reported in a prepared
statement that they had just a little more than half of that number – 472,927 valid
signatures, according to Florida’s Division of Elections website.
In addition to the legalization of sports betting in the state, the proposed
amendment also included that any tax revenues acquired from sports betting would
be redirected to something called the Educational Enhancement Trust Fund, created
to help supplement Florida’s public school funds.
Supporters of the amendment blame the outbreak of the omicron variant late last
year for the petition’s low numbers. As stated by Johnson, “while pursuing our
mission to add sports betting to the ballot we ran into some serious challenges, but
most of all the COVID surge decimated our operations and the ability to collect in-
person signatures.”
Unfortunately, petition signatures are only valid for one election year, according to
Florida law, and it is not yet known whether the campaign will seek to relaunch a
similar effort for the 2024 campaign. According to Johnson, the campaign “will be
considering all options in the months ahead to ensure that Floridians have the
opportunity to bring safe and legal sports betting to the state, along with hundreds
of millions of dollars annually to support public education.”
The campaign was spurred into action in the spring of 2021, after Florida governor
Ron DeSantis reached a multibillion-dollar agreement with the Seminole Tribe; an
agreement which gave them a veritable monopoly on sports betting throughout the
state. The agreement, known as a compact, included a “hub-and-spoke” plan,
which would run any mobile bets placed in Florida through computer servers on
Seminole Tribe lands. This, according to the compact, meant that all
electronic/mobile bets placed anywhere across the state “shall be deemed to be
exclusively conducted by the tribe.” A lawsuit was immediately filed by the owners
of pari-mutuel casinos Magic City and Bonita Springs Poker Room, stating that the
compact violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, a Federal Law that establishes
the jurisdictional framework for Indian gaming. In November, U.S. District Judge
Dabney Friedrich agreed with them, and invalidated the compact (a decision which
is currently being appealed).
A second initiative, backed largely by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, was also
vying for placement on the November ballot, but they too fell short of signatures.
The committee sponsoring the proposed amendment, which would have allowed
North Florida pari-mutuels to offer casino-style games, was about 160,000
signatures short of the required 891,589 as of Friday.