Gambling Corporation Las Vegas Sands Plans to Create a New Casino in Florida

With its warm climate and sunny beach resorts, Florida is a major tourist location and a large market for casino gambling. Perhaps this is what casino gaming company Las Vegas Sands saw in 2012 and decided it was time to invest in some gaming expansion efforts in the state.

After the proposal was rejected by lawmakers that same year, the LV Sands shifted their focus to expansion potentials in Georgia.

The more recent move to expand in the Sunshine State has seemingly been derailed by the influential Indian Seminole Tribe. In addition, this casino proposed in the expansion was to include hotel rooms, convention facilities, restaurants, and other entertainment. Everything should be at the highest level.

The Seminole owns the Hard Rock International casino company and operates six of Florida’s seven tribal gambling properties.

Allegations of death threats against workers gathering signatures

The move to get support in time for this year’s ballot was largely unsuccessful, as the Sands fell short of the 90,000 votes requirement. This requirement was to be met by February 1, 2022, but they failed tremendously.

The company blames the failure on the tribal opposition and intervention. Florida’s election officials have deemed the petition signed in support of a constitutional amendment change in favor of LVS to contain falsified signatures. In the joint investigation published by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald earlier in January, this matter was dubbed “one of the largest cases of election-related fraud in recent history.”

This clash saw Las Vegas Sands contributing over $73 million to the non-profit political committee called Florida Voters in Charge. This was for support in the signature-gathering process following the proposed amendment circulating in June. The body has control of casino staking statewide through citizen-initiated balloting. The Seminole Tribe also spent about $40 million opposing the group.

After months of back and forth in court, American gambling company Las Vegas Sands is scrapping the proposal it had planned and prepared for months. The proposal of whether they could build new casinos in Northern Florida was to be passed before the voters this year.

Nasty Lawsuits

In December, this clash saw allegations from the Sands-supported group when they filed a lawsuit against the Seminoles for making attempts to sabotage the movement by illegally interfering with signature gatherers, amongst other things.

The Seminoles accused the body of paying signature gatherers by the signature. This goes against the legislation created in 2019 that prevents signature gatherers from being paid based on the number of petitions collected.

On January 31, the body dropped the suit before filing a petition that asked Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper to extend the February 1 deadline. This petition was based on the lawsuit accusing election supervisors of “sitting on piles of petitions” and rejecting “tens of thousands of signatures” without giving a chance to “cure” the signature mismatches.

They filed a notice of appeal to the 1st District Court of Appeal after Cooper denied their request. They dropped this appeal a few weeks ago, voluntarily dismissing the case before Cooper.

The Next Move For Las Vegas Sands

In an interview with review-journal, the CEO of Sands, Rob Goldstein, said, “I think it’s in the early innings. We will be in Florida, in my opinion. It’s just a question of when it happens.”

Since petitions are only valid for one election cycle, all the signatures gathered for this year’s poll become void afterward. So a decision to try for the 2024 poll would mean new signatures for the petition. This transcends to millions of dollars, opposition, and possibly more court cases in the nearest future.

There was no comment from Bascom regarding whether the group would revive its efforts if LVS decided to try again in 2024.

There is still indecision on the part of Las Vegas Sands as to what the next step would be.

Favorable Proposals and Initiatives

In a statement released some weeks ago, spokeswoman Sarah Bascom announced;

“The Florida Voters in Charge Committee, formed to bring casino gaming and its accompanying economic development benefits to the north Florida region, has begun winding down the committee and its efforts for the 2022 election cycle.”

She went ahead to say that the group believes it submitted an excess of the required number of voters’ signatures to make this year’s poll. But there are various obstacles it would need to overcome to vindicate those voters. This is required to meet up, but the most recent challenge, which is the passage of an act that calls for the availability of the Supreme Court review of the ballot language, has made the goal unsustainable.

Focusing on other options, The body went ahead to submit two proposals to the Florida Division of Elections, and they have the initial support of key players in Jacksonville.

One proposed initiative is to request existing card rooms with active licenses to offer casino betting. They must be up to 130 miles (209.21 km) away from the seven resorts the Seminoles own.

The second proposal is to allow them to seek voters’ approval for up to three new casino resorts built at least 100 miles (160.93 km) away from any of the tribe’s casinos. These resorts would cost Las Vegas Sands at least $500 million to be built.

These proposals target the expansion of gaming and the economic growth it would bring to Northern Florida, which happens to be the body’s main interest. They also seem to have been drawn up to prevent further opposition from Seminole after they were granted a monopoly in major parts of South Florida by Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature.

This recently passed compact/revenue sharing law gives the Seminoles control over online casino real money betting statewide. The Seminoles are the state’s sole operators, with gambling resorts in the southern portion in Clewiston, Okeechobee, Coconut Creek, Hollywood, Immokalee, and Tampa.

Conclusion

The Las Vegas Sands’ proposal is not the only betting initiative that lacked enough signatures to meet with the 2022 ballot. Another initiative to authorize online sports wagering statewide, at professional sports venues, and pari-mutuel facilities failed.

After a fierce battle in court and the millions of dollars Las Vegas Sands spent on this initiative, it does not seem like LV Sands would be backing out from the race due to failed efforts this year.

LV Sands’ plan to create land-based betting houses and invest in digital gaming technology in Florida may have failed. But we are sure to see a renewed effort in the months to come.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes