Seminole Tribe re-launches mobile sports betting in Florida

The Seminole Tribe launched its mobile sports betting app Tuesday in a “limited” fashion, spokespeople confirmed, despite two ongoing lawsuits that challenge the practice and the gaming compact between the tribe and the state.

The re-launch comes as a surprise to Florida’s gamblers and gambling experts, only a week after the tribe publicly announced the return of in-person sports betting but said nothing about betting online.

“I’m stunned,” Bob Jarvis, a gambling expert and law professor at Nova Southeastern University, told the Sun Sentinel Tuesday morning following news of the app’s launch. “Especially with last week’s announcement that was so careful to only focus on what the compact allowed that was not the subject of the lawsuit. I thought they really, for the moment, were prepared to continue not to try to offer mobile sports betting.”

The re-launch was not publicly announced, but was confirmed in a statement from Gary Bitner, a spokesperson for the tribe.

“The Seminole Tribe is offering limited access to existing Florida customers to test its Hard Rock Bet platform,” the statement said. The statement did not elaborate on how many customers currently have access, and Bitner declined to comment on when the app will fully launch to all customers.

That launch appears imminent, however, according to the app’s website, where “Legal sports betting is coming to Florida” is emblazoned in all caps across the screen.

The Seminoles previously launched the sports betting app in 2021, but stopped accepting wagers after a court ruling blocked the gaming compact between the state of Florida and the Seminole Tribe that gave the tribe a monopoly on mobile and in-person sports betting.

Floridians who already had sports betting accounts from the brief 2021 launch, or who had already joined the company’s loyalty program, Unity by Hard Rock, before Nov. 6, get full “early access” and can place bets before the “official launch,” the website says: “All you have to do is download or open the all-new Hard Rock Bet app and log back into your account with the same credentials.”

Meanwhile, those who join the loyalty program after Nov. 6 can get on the “early access waitlist,” the website says, by going to their local Seminole casino and earning a “Unity point” by playing a casino game.

Last week, the tribe announced that in-person sports betting would return on Dec. 7 at all South Florida locations, and, at the time, did not comment on the return of mobile sports betting.

“If they were going to do this, why didn’t they announce it last week as a total package?” Jarvis asked. “I don’t know if their thinking changed in the last week or if this was always their plan … if you’re going to do it already, you’d want to make a really big splash with the cameras rolling.”

Currently, two lawsuits filed by West Flagler and Associates on behalf of a group of pari-mutuel companies seek to challenge the gaming compact and mobile sports betting specifically. Those lawsuits could force the Seminoles to pause the app yet again.

One is before the U.S. Supreme Court, and argues that mobile sports betting defies the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act because it won’t occur on tribal land. The gaming compact states that the bets would comply with IGRA because the servers accepting the bets are located on Seminole Tribe land.

The other is before the Florida Supreme Court, and argues that the law defies an amendment which requires a 60% of voters to approve any expansion of gambling in the state.

Last week, the U.S Supreme Court lifted a stay that had temporarily blocked the compact, and with it, sports betting in the state. The tribe’s in-person sports betting announcement soon followed.

But the Florida Supreme Court could institute another stay that forces the tribe to halt the app yet again, like in 2021. West Flagler has already implied that it will request that stay, though the court has yet to decide if it will take up the case or send it to a lower court first.

The Seminoles will likely win both cases, Jarvis said. Still, he had expected the tribe to wait before re-launching mobile sports betting, not only because the app may have to pause again, but because the launch could also be perceived as a “slap in the face to the judges and justices who have not yet ruled on these matters.”

At the same time, as Hallandale Beach-based sports gambling attorney Daniel Wallach told the Sun Sentinel last week, each month that mobile sports betting is not offered, the tribe misses out on potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The Seminoles presumably took [these things] into account and decided ‘we’re willing to take the business and legal risks,'”  Javis added. “And maybe it is that they just felt, ‘we want to make money.'”

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