Florida is home to numerous gaming choices both online and in the actual world. Legal online gambling in Florida currently includes horse racing betting, greyhound betting and everyday fantasy sports. In the physical world, Florida has horse racing gambling, bingo, conventional casinos and jai alai betting.
Sports betting in Florida does not appear likely at the moment. The country has long been eyed as a major potential market for sport betting, but changes to state authorities have made any future gaming expansions harder as they currently require a statewide referendum initiated by petition.
Legal Online Betting Options
Let us start with a fast list of legal Florida gaming websites and dig into all the details below.
Sports Gambling:
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Fantasy Sports:
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Horse and Greyhound Betting:
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Horse and Greyhound Racing
Online horse racing and greyhound betting have been legal in Florida for decades and a variety of big racing websites accept customers from the Sunshine State. BetAmerica, TwinSpires and TVG all accept Florida customers and are licensed directly here in america.
BetAmerica Review
TwinSpires Review
TVG Review
In November 2018, Florida voters approved Amendment 13 to end greyhound racing. The amendment created greyhound racing and gambling on live greyhound races held in Florida illegal beginning on January 1st, 2021.
Present racetracks will nevertheless be permitted to provide poker and other games following the change takes effect, however they will no longer be in a position to sponsor live greyhound races. This amendment has no effect on internet greyhound racing, which will stay legal because the change only attempts to prevent wagers placed on races held at the state.
Fantasy Sports
The legal problem for fantasy sports in Florida is complicated and uncertain, but most daily dream sites have served the nation for years with no hindrance from officials.
A number of attempts to formally legalize fantasy sports in Florida have failed over the decades due to disputes over how the action ought to be categorized and the complexity of tribal gambling contracts between the nation and the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
A 1991 Attorney General opinion lumped season-long dream sports in with gaming and opined it is most likely illegal under state legislation, but the opinion is obsolete and doesn’t maintain legal weight. Just as lawmakers want to clarify the legal status of fantasy sports, progress has been slow. Meanwhile, Florida residents are approved at both FanDuel and DraftKings:
FanDuel Review
DraftKings Review
Skill Games
Florida gambling law permits games of skill only if entrance fees don’t directly contribute to the prize pool. This signifies is that it is authorized to pay an entry fee and compete for a fixed prize, but not to perform in a contest where all the entry fees are collected to form the prize pool .
For example, it would be lawful to host a paid-entry golf championship if the organizers place fixed prizes that do not change no matter the number of men and women enter the tournament. That same tournament could cross the line into illegal land if prizes were determined by pooling entry charges and paying the winners a percentage of the prize pool.
A 1990 opinion from the Attorney General summed it up as follows:
“Thus, I am of the opinion that a contest of skill, such as a hole-in-one golf contest, in which the contestant pays an entry fee, which doesn’t make up the prize, for the opportunity to win a valuable prize by the practice of skill, doesn’t violate the gaming laws of this nation. To the extent that previous opinions of the office might be inconsistent with the conclusion reached herein, they are hereby modified.”
WorldWinner.com, which is now the largest skill gaming website, accepts citizens of Florida but restricts them from particular contests in which the prize pool isn’t fixed. Follow the link below to read more about WorldWinner:
WorldWinner Review
What about the lottery?
Florida DOES NOT sell lottery tickets on line nor does it offer a subscription service. Obviously, you can always try your luck at unauthorized lottery resellers which you can find online. I don’t recommend going that path though. It is still illegal to sell lottery tickets on the internet in Florida so any site involved in the business is completely unregulated and most likely located overseas.
Nobody really knows how secure or legit overseas lottery resellers are. They claim to have a team of agents located around the globe whose job it is to go around and purchase lottery tickets on behalf of consumers. The issue is there’s no way to confirm how it actually works.
If you would like to play the lottery, it is ideal to just go buy your tickets in person. You really don’t wish to leave the fate of your own $40 million dollar at the hands of some foreign, quasi-legal website. Countries do have the authority to sell tickets online, but Florida doesn’t yet do that.
Sports Betting at Florida
Sports betting is illegal for aside from two exceptions: jai alai betting and cruise ships that sail into international waters to provide sports gambling.
The exemption for jai alai betting dates back to a time in Florida during which jai alai was considerably larger than the obscure sport it’s today. Jai alai came to Florida in the 1920s, and the state became a little of an epicenter for jai alai players around the world owing to warm weather year-round and effortless access from Spain and Latin America, where jai alai is popular.
Through its heyday, jai alai was even exempted from state and national sports betting prohibitions. Jai alai preserved a strong presence in Florida throughout the 1970s but entered a steady decrease from the 1980s amid rising competition from professional sports clubs, the South and lottery Florida casinos.
Nowadays, jai alai is a fairly niche game and there are just a couple of active frontons in operation today. For the most part, jai alai survives today primarily due to Florida gaming laws that require card rooms to offer you some kind of parimutuel wagering (such as jai alai, greyhound racing or horse racing betting). Therefore, most jai alai frontons exist chiefly to facilitate other kinds of gambling.
The other”exclusion” into Florida’s sports gambling prohibition happens on the cruise ships managed by Victory Casino Cruises. Victory Casino Cruise ships depart twice each day from Port Canaveral. These ships sail out into international waters, open a casino and sportsbook for a couple hours and then return to beach later the same day.
So far as a widespread legalization of sports gambling, Florida does not appear likely to expand its gambling choices anytime soon. There have been no attempts to present sports betting legislation and there haven’t been any recent efforts to legalize sports gambling.
A report from Eilers & Krejcik Gambling listed the 32 countries likely to legalize sports gambling within five decades of a Supreme Court ruling overturning the national prohibition of sports betting. Florida was not included in that listing, but it had been contained in a supplemental collection of 12 additional states inclined to legalize sports gambling within seven decades of such a ruling.
Can Sports Betting Ever Be Legalized at Florida?
Apart from the exceptions detailed above, sports gambling remains illegal in Florida and that is unlikely to change any time soon. Florida has a complicated mixture of competing interests involving lawmakers, Tribal issues and even the Disney business that all have their own opinions on the growth of gaming.
The chances of Florida legalizing sports gambling anytime soon took a hit in 2018 when voters approved a ballot measure that basically stripped off the state legislature from authorizing any gambling expansion, including sports gambling.
Formerly, the state legislature might have possibly drafted a law to create Florida sports gambling legal. Under the new amendment, Florida citizens would have to initiate a campaign to collect signatures to place the issue to a statewide referendum. Then, voters would have to approve that referendum by 60% to make sports betting legal. It’s possible, but not very likely at this moment.
Is it legal to bet online in Florida?
It depends on what your definition of”legal” is. A few kinds of internet betting are explicitly legal in Florida (horses, greyhounds, fantasy and ability ). It is clearly illegal to run an internet casino, card room or some other business that takes wagers without the proper licensing.
What is not clear is whether or not it is a crime to put bets online at unlicensed gaming websites. The key text in Florida’s gaming laws reads as follows:
“849.08 Betting. Whoever plays or engages in any game at cards, keno, roulette, faro or other game of chance, at any place, by any device whatever, for cash or other item of value, will be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second level…”
It appears pretty clear that this law makes it a misdemeanor crime to participate in obvious gaming games such as slot machines, slots, blackjack, craps and so forth. The part that says”by any system whatever” can be easily translated to include the world wide web. On the other hand, the country hasn’t prosecuted one individual for the mere act of putting bets online. Hunting down people playing blackjack on their computers just isn’t a priority.
Online poker is a different issue. The above mentioned law doesn’t explicitly cite”poker” although it does mention”any game at cards.” But — there’s always a however — that the phrase”other game of chance” seems to imply that only games of chance have been forbidden. If poker isn’t a game of chance, this legislation doesn’t apply.
It does not end there, folks. You and I might not believe poker a game of chance, but certain federal and state laws most certainly do define poker as precisely that. Florida law does not specify games of chance nor does it mention poker and there is no case law to fall back on.
Someone would have to push the matter before we get Florida’s opinion on the situation of poker being skill or fortune. This probably won’t happen anytime soon because nobody is hunting down poker players .
What the Future Holds for Internet Gambling in Florida
An increasing number of countries are in the process of legalizing online poker and casino games after a federal judge ruled in 2011 the Wire Act of 1961 only applies to sports betting. Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey have already legalized either internet poker, casino games or both. State legislators in Florida haven’t yet moved to change anything. No legislation is pending at this moment.
It does not look like anything will probably be changing in Florida any time soon . The country is largely opposed to the expansion of internet gambling. In April of 2014, Florida governor Rick Scott voiced his opposition to expanding online betting at the federal level with a letter led to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
In the years since, there have been no real efforts to alter Florida gaming legislation. The present status quo looks quite likely to remain as it is for the foreseeable future.
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