Gambling interests do a sneaky end run around Floridians’ resounding ‘No’ to casinos | Editorial
Are Florida lawmakers ready to sell out the state’s voters on casino gambling for dinner on a superyacht and a cameo appearance by football superstar Tom Brady and his model-wife, Gisele Bündchen? That’s certainly what it looks like.
In September, Miami billionaire Jeffrey Soffer hosted Republican lawmakers, including Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson, on his yacht, the 311-foot Madsummer, now on the market for an eye-popping $272 milllion. That’s where he made the pitch: He wants to build a casino at his family’s Fontainebleau Resort in Miami Beach.
But the only thing new in this latest attempt to undermine the voters and expand gambling is the wildly ostentatious location. The rest of it is infuriatingly predictable. And insulting. And a bad idea for the community.
For decades, gambling interests have tried to make Florida into Las Vegas — with humidity. Again and again, voters have responded by telling them — and the legislators who are so quick to leap into their arms — No.
No to more gambling in the state without a specific, voter-driven initiative. And No to casinos in Miami Beach.
And yet, here we are again. As outlined in a Miami Herald story recently, Soffer wants the Legislature to find a way to move a gambling license he already owns — for the Big Easy casino in Hallandale Beach — to the Fontainebleau.
The 1954 mid-century gem, designed by Morris Lapidus, was purchased in 2005 by the Soffer family’s Turnberry Associates for $325 million, gutted and renovated for $1 billion and retrofitted to accommodate a future resort casino.
The Fontainebleau isn’t the only property apparently in play during these super-secret talks. Also under discussion for resort casinos: Donald Trump’s struggling Doral golf resort and the downtown property owned by Genting, the financially troubled Malaysian group that bought the Miami Herald’s former headquarters on Biscayne Bay in the hope of building a massive gambling complex.
Pushing back
All of that is part of a potential mega-deal that mixes in just about every gambling interest or type of wager you can think of: the horse tracks, the Seminole Tribe, sports gambling. It’s a classic Florida story: Everyone would get something they want — except the voters.
This is an effort that needs to be stopped in its tracks. That’s the goal of Miami’s Norman Braman, a billionaire himself, who is aligned with developer Armando Codina, a major donor to Republican candidates and causes, and Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber in a united front against any expansion. Braman told the Miami Herald Editorial Board he would “absolutely” file a lawsuit if necessary.
Their objections are longstanding and fierce. Among the most significant: Casinos suck the life out of local businesses. They function as self-contained units, keeping their patrons inside the compound. The gambling company benefits far more than the community.
Plus, they argue, the Miami-area business community and tourism have been doing fine without adding a big casino resort, let alone several. A vision of our community as one that can draw the financial and tech industries to set up shop isn’t compatible with a sudden proliferation of resort casinos.
Braman said representatives of Art Basel Miami, which has become one of the world’s premier art shows, told him they would have to reconsider staying in Miami-Dade County if it becomes a casino destination.
Florida has beaten back pro-gambling efforts so many times we almost can’t remember them all — starting in the 1940s, stretching into the 1970s, when then-Gov. Reuben Askew led a successful no-casinos drive, and continuing right up to 2018. That’s when state voters passed Amendment 3 to the Florida Constitution. It says only the voters have the right to expand casino gambling, through a citizen’s initiative, which requires 60 percent of the vote to pass.
Seventy-one percent of voters told Tallahassee to keep their hands off the roulette wheel in 2018. That’s an unambiguous message.
The gambling industry has never really taken No for an answer, though, abetted by the sure knowledge that the clinking of slot-machine jackpots — or a walk up the grand staircase on a megayacht — has a tendency to make lawmakers deaf to the voices of their constituents. Throw in a toothy smile from Bündchen, and that dreary, old will-of-the-people stuff doesn’t stand a chance.
Tribes have casinos
Gambling interests in this state have won more than a few rounds. There are slot machines at parimutuels in Miami-Dade and Broward County now.
The Seminole and Miccosukee tribes had have casinos for years, including the Hard Rock in Broward, with its decapitated-guitar-shaped hotel. Card rooms have proliferated, though as dog racing has finally died out. The Florida Lottery has been around for ages. We have enough gambling.
But the big prize is still the resort casino, something only the Seminoles have because the Hard Rock is on sovereign tribal land. For Soffer to make his high-stakes dream come true, he’ll need legislators to find a way around the state law that prohibits moving gaming licenses. He’ll also have to get the state to overrule — probably through yet another misguided preemption bill in the Legislature — the law in Miami Beach that prohibits casinos. And he’d have to somehow bypass that pesky constitutional amendment as well.
In other words, he’ll need to have lawmakers willing once again to work against the people they represent in order to do his bidding.
Sad to say, that may be happening right now. And that means the biggest danger here is that some of the traditional foes of expansion have been curiously quiet this time. In the past, the Seminole Tribe has not wanted the competition.
Disney, which generates a chunk of its revenue from the ESPN media empire, had always viewed expanded casinos as antithetical to its wholesome image. Why the silence this time around from these powerful interests? Could that have something to do with lucrative sports betting?
Under the proposal detailed in the Miami Herald story, the tribe would be allowed to bring online sports betting to Florida — potentially ending a $350-million-a-year stalemate between the tribe and the state. That, in turn, might allow the state’s existing horse tracks and jai-alai frontons and slots casinos to run sports-betting activities from their facilities, as long as the servers were on tribal property.
If all of that sounds like a vast web of people trying to come up with ways to subvert the voters’ authority, well, it is. And all the yachts and sports heroes and supermodels in the world can’t disguise it.
This story was originally published March 27, 2021 at 4:53 PM.