Seminole Casinos Made Big Bucks in Florida
Recent reports have surfaced that indicate the Seminole Tribe is making vast sums of money from its casinos located in Florida. In total, the Seminole Tribe currently runs seven different Florida casinos, and its revenue sharing payments with the state have recently been examined. This has helped determine just how much money the tribe’s casinos are making.
Seminole Casino Doing Extremely Well
The Seminole Tribe is not required by law to disclose its casino earnings. However, the money it sends to the Florida government as part of the revenue sharing payments are publicly available. The Miami Herald decided to dig a little deeper and use revenue sharing rates to determine just how much money the casinos are making.
The publication was able to work out that the largest cash-generator is the Seminole Hard Rock in Tampa. The Miami Herald calculated that the Tampa location earned around $967 million dollars during the fiscal year that ended at the end of June 2016. To put this into perspective, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas only earned $579 million during that same period.
It is thought that the Seminole Tribe took in $2.3 billion in total during that period from all of its casinos. The eight-horse racing and dog racetracks in Florida only managed $578 million during that time. It is thought that the Seminole Tribe is required to share between 12 and 15% of its revenue with the state of Florida.
Seminole has Exclusive Games
Some of you may be wondering what the tribe is doing to be so successful. It’s not actually that hard to work out as the Seminole Tribe has exclusive rights to offer Blackjack in Florida. On top of this, Florida has started to ban pari-mutuel gaming venues from offering house-banked games. These games are defined as a game of chance where the house participates.
Back in 2010, the Seminole Tribe signed an agreement with the Florida government to exclusively offer Blackjack to gamblers at its casinos. This came at a cost of $1 billion, which would be paid to the state government over a five-year period. When this agreement ended in 2015, the state and tribe struggled to come to an agreement. However, a new deal was signed recently that allows the Seminole tribe to retain exclusive rights. This deal will last until 2030.
With the new deal in place, it sure looks like the Seminole casinos in Florida will continue to do great business, despite Walt Disney’s protests to gambling expansion.