[ Home ]

[ Slots News ]

Seminoles Want to Stay Put

The Seminole Indian tribe is willing to make it worth the state of Florida’s while to work with them, if Governor Charlie Crist only signs the agreement necessary to keep the tribe in place. At stake are an estimated forty-five thousand additional jobs and two hundred eighty-eight million dollars funneled through state coffers, not to mention future revenues and the goodwill of a tribal nation that has had a longstanding compact with the Sunshine State to host legalized slot machine and casino gambling facilities that constitute a major tourism draw and source of income.

The Seminole Indian Compact is up for review, and, the way James Allen sees it, the state cannot afford to lose the tribe’s resources. Allen is the CEO of Seminole Gaming and the chairman of Seminole Hard Rock International, which administrates the Hard Rock Casino Resorts in the Floridian cities of Tampa and Hollywood. Allen spoke before a House committee yesterday and outlined the Seminoles’ plans to expand the Tampa and Hollywood complexes, projects which could dump as much as four-point-five billion dollars into the state’s economy and create numerous jobs throughout the duration. Allen’s projection called for the creation of twelve thousand positions created directly by the tribe, and up to thirty-four thousand jobs created indirectly as a result of the construction and new phases of the slot game and casino gambling resorts.

Governor Crist gave the Seminoles permission to install slot machine terminals at their casinos, an authority that the State Supreme Court determined he does not have. Therefore, the compact between the state and the tribe as signed by Crist is now void. The Seminoles are pushing the Legislature to sign off on the pact legally.

Back to February 2009 Archive.