More Than 500,000 Signatures Needed to Legalize Florida Sports Betting
By Space Coast Daily // January 26, 2022
Since a court ruling deemed Florida’s sports betting deal with the Seminole Tribe as a violation to the Florida State Constitution and federal Indian Gambling Law, sports betting has been illegal in the state of Florida. Sports betting only lasted 22 days before it was stopped, now several major betting companies try to gather signatures in order to make the November general election ballot.
The 1st of February is the last day to submit verified signatures. Now the state Division of Elections have received 318,968 petition signatures for the initiative. Needing 891,589 signatures the Florida Education Champions committee, backed by DraftKings and FanDuel, still needs more than 500,000 signatures before the deadline.
At the time of writing this means that they need to have almost 40,000 signatures verified a day. To make people sign the petition several prominent bookmakers and CEOs have encouraged their social media followers based in Florida to sign it before the deadline.
Money Leaving the State
Even though the companies that would like to run a betting operation within the state need to pay local taxes, it is still a problem for many residents that a lot of the money will leave the state.
A lot of the betting companies are based north due to it being legal in those states first. This means that the revenue will be moved up-state and not benefit the state as much as it could. If the sports betting industry was to stay with the local Seminole Tribe all the money would be kept in the Floridian state.
As it is for now it is only possible for people in Florida to bet on sports online if they leave the state. However, when you are in a state that legalized sports gambling you are allowed to gamble. This means that you can learn how to start betting right here, and use these tips and tricks when out-of-state. This page will also give you a head start, if the 891,589 signatures are collected.
The Holy Grail of Sports Betting
With New York starting to take in sport bets this year, the fourth-largest state has now legalized online sports betting and a huge market has been opened. Florida is an even larger market in terms of population, which is why many sport bookmakers would like the state to legalize it. Studies have suggested that the total revenue for the state would have totaled $6 billion by 2030 with most of the tax income being steered towards public education.
A Long Way to Go
It will be very hard for the initiators to gather half a million signatures before the 1st of February and if they do there will still be a long way to go. Even though the gambling act was passed with 71 percent voting for a legalization in 2018 it may not be the same case if it will be on the ballot this November.
A legalization might be the only solution for residents of Florida to get a chance to play on their favorite sport teams. But right now, we can only wait for the total number of signatures to be revealed and the future of sports betting in Florida.
