MIAMI – Florida State Sen. Blaise Ingoglia filed a bill on Thursday pushing for a gambling expansion ahead of the upcoming 2024 legislative session.
Igoglia filed SB 1054: Pari-mutuel Permitholders, which aims to delete “a requirement that certain permitholders show that their permits have not been disapproved or recalled at a later election” when submitting applications to the Florida Gaming Control Commission, a five-member regulatory body.
Gov. Ron DeSantis reappointed Julie Imanuel Brown, an attorney, as the FGCC commissioner, on May 6. The other four gambling regulators are John D’Aquila, an accountant; Charles Drago, a retired police chief; Tina Repp, a retired FBI agent; and Louis Trombetta, an attorney and gambling law expert.
The bill also aims to authorize “greyhound dog racing permitholders to relocate if specified conditions are met.” Nearly 70% of voters in the November 2018 election favored amending the state constitution to ban dog racing in 2020.
The bill also requires “that a slot machine gaming area of a relocated pari-mutuel facility,” a betting pool in which those who bet on competitors finishing in the first 3 places share the winnings, “be at the location for which the relocation was approved.”
There was a concern that the bill could tie the hands of municipalities since it provides “that pari-mutuel facilities that relocated ... are not subject to municipal restrictions on the establishment of cardrooms, etc.”
There were fears that this law if passed could affect Miami Beach where most city officials who oppose gambling worry about the billionaire behind the Las Vegas Strip’s newest hotel-casino: Jeffrey Soffer. His new 67-story tower, the second-tallest in Las Vegas, is an homage to the history of the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, which first opened in 1954 and the Soffer family acquired in 2005.
Igoglia, the Republican state lawmaker who filed the bill, represents District 11, which includes Citrus, Hernando, and Sumter counties, and a northern area of Pasco County.
This is a developing story. Local 10 News reporters, including This Week In South Florida Anchor Glenna Milberg, are working on stories about the bill.
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