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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit made a ruling that permits an American Indian tribe in Florida to continue operating an online sportsbook, and the US Supreme Court has decided not to overturn it. Two Florida-based casinos requested a stay on the appeals court’s decision and a review by the Supreme Court, and this request was denied.
In expressing his opinion on the court’s decision to reject a stay, Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized that the judgment’s effects would be minimal. He pointed out that the Indian Regulatory Gaming Act (IGRA) may have been broken and constitutional issues about equal treatment might have been raised if the agreement had permitted gaming outside of tribal territory.
The Indian Regulatory Gaming Act, which was passed in 1988 to create a framework for tribal gaming operations, is at the center of the controversy. As per the Indian Gaming Rights Act (IGRA), tribes that intend to provide casino games and sports betting are required to sign a compact with the relevant state. The agreement is deemed accepted if the state’s Secretary of the Interior takes no action on it within 45 days.
A compact deal between the Seminole Tribe and the state of Florida was signed in 2021, enabling the tribe to run internet sports betting anywhere in the state, not only on tribal territories. When Deb Haaland, the interior secretary, did not reject the agreement, it was put into effect in August 2021.
After this, two Florida non-tribal casinos filed a federal court challenge to Haaland’s ratification of the contract. They said that internet sports betting is illegal under federal law and violates the equal treatment clause of the constitution, and that IGRA only permits compacts to establish gambling on tribal territory.
According to U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, Haaland should have rejected the agreement since it permitted sports betting outside of “Indian lands.” Friedrich ruled in favor of the casinos. The D.C. Circuit, however, reversed this ruling, restoring the compact, and contended that IGRA does not prevent compacts from addressing matters that are not related to tribal lands.
The casinos appealed to the Supreme Court to halt the D.C. Circuit’s ruling, claiming that numerous sports betting transactions would occur in violation of state and federal laws before the case’s merits could be addressed. However, the Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, argued that the D.C. Circuit’s opinion only authorized gambling on tribal lands.
The Supreme Court denied the stay in an unsigned order, and no one in the public objected. Kavanaugh restated that only tribal lands were authorized by the accord. He said that it may have violated the Indian Gaming Rights Act (IGRA) and presented significant constitutional issues if it had permitted gaming in other parts of the state. However, the Florida Supreme Court is now considering comparable concerns, thus these particular constitutional questions are not on the Supreme Court’s docket.