PX, you are so all over this stuff it's awesome. Can you tell me if I'm understanding things correctly?

The belief is that the recently negotiated compact will not pass the legislature, but that the legislature will instead authorize expanded poker (et al.), which by operation of law will then be available both in FL (at least So FL) and on Indian territory. And this result will occur in perhaps 3-6 months.

Someone please explain to me why you think the Legislature will not approve the compact but will approve expansion of poker. It doesn't make sense to me why they would do that. Poker expansion was a bargaining chip. They're not going to just give it away for no reason.

Yes, that's pretty much my prediction. I expect:

The compact will not pass ratification.
The legislature will intead pass as separate bill for changes to the pari-mutuel laws as in SB788, or greater, either this October or next May. (More than likely this October.)
Crist will sign this bill into law without delay.
These changes will give the parimutuels unlimited poker across the state.
The tribal casinos will be entitled to the same changes to poker automatically.

Right now, no one can open a casino in "Florida". The Indian tribes have the right to open and run casinos on tribal lands within the outer borders of Florida, under federal law. At issue is which games they are entitled to offer.

Yes, of course. But you can say the same thing of every state in the union. I don't think that is where Florida law is headed, at least for the moment. I think we will see gambling expanded at the Florida pari-mutuel facilities, as follows:

Unlimited poker - this year or next spring.
Class III slots in any county where it is authorized by local referendum - this year or next spring.
Banked card games in South Florida - within 2 years.
All casino games in South Florida - within 5 years.
Banked card games outside of South Florida wherever it is passed by local referendum - within 5 years.

I don't think the pari-mutuel law changes, including poker, were a bargaining chip for anything. They were supposed to be concessions to the pari-mutuels to be able to compete against expanded gaming at the tribal casinos. The tribal casinos are not going to lose gaming, with or without a compact, so the pari-mutuels still need these changes to survive. Also, there are powerful lobbies from some of the pari-mutuels that will push to get these changes and more. Atwater, the Speaker of the House, is himself from Palm Beach County and wants to expand to Class III gaming there.

Originally, the pari-mutuel changes were tied to the compact (but not as bargaining points with the tribe). With failure of the compact, I expect them to pass on a separate legislative vote.

he's actually right.

its easier/cheaper to build the school away from the major developed areas.

Here's a look at the political landscape for the ratification vote:

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news..._have_cru.html

Why was it tied to the compact law?

I don't want to do the math because it's a waste of time but even if LV had more tables than the Commerce the difference is slim

afaik, because the justification to expand gambling at the pari-mutuels was to compete with the expanded gambling at the seminole casinos.

OK. Then what's the justification if the Legislature doesn't ratify the compact?

This thread is 37 pages and counting? Ready for Part III?

1. Pari-mutuels still need the changes to survive and compete with existing gaming at Seminole casinos.

2. State needs new source of revenue to replace lost revenues from lack of compact with Seminoles.

Not yet. Probably after the special legislative session in October, and SB788 is dead.

Edit: set your 2+2 preferences to display more posts per page, and this thread won't have so many pages.

"For players of other casino games, it's largely status quo. Seminole Hard Rock Tampa doesn't get much new, aside from being able to offer video versions of craps and roulette. "

That is IF the vote passes in october. They already have had video roulette for over a year now. Is that what they mean? What is video craps? Is there something in the signed compact about this or is it another misinformed newspaper?

http://www.tampabay.com/news/busines...-dream/1033596

There is a line in the new compact that says:

So slot machines that look like roulette or craps would be allowed. I have wondered if this essentially makes roulette and craps available to the tribe, just in a different form. For instance, I can envision an roulette table where each player instead of having chips has tokens encoded with their player number. Then they slip the tokens into slots on the table for each type of bet. The electronic or mechanical display wheel spins, hits a number and each winning player is given a stack of tokens. Is that a slot machine or a table game?

In Oklahoma, only card games are allowed, so in addition to BJ they have roulette and craps but use card form for the games. The roulette wheel has spokes on it with 38 different cards in the spokes and you bet on the table J clubs or 8 diamonds etc. you can also bet on what suit comes. The craps they cut a deck and the card they pull is the roll. cards have 6-1, 3-2, etc. on them. Where there is a will there is a way lol.