Supreme Court Denies Stay for Seminole Tribe's Hard Rock Bet

In a significant development, Chief Justice John Roberts denied the motion to stay on October 25. The official Supreme Court blog referred to it as an "emergency application for stay." Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the court's decision, stating his agreement with the denial of the stay application. Kavanaugh's rationale was based on the DC Circuit's interpretation of the compact between Florida and the Seminole tribe, which authorized on-reservation gaming operations but not off-reservation gaming operations. He also emphasized that if the compact allowed off-reservation gaming, it might run afoul of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, as explained by the District Court.

The denial of the stay implies that the Seminole Tribe's plans to launch sports betting through Hard Rock Bet remain uncertain. Initially, this endeavor was approved in April 2021 when Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, greenlit a gaming compact that exclusively permitted the tribe to offer sports betting in the state. However, the rollout of Hard Rock Bet faced a roadblock in December 2021 when the District of Columbia determined that the tribe's compact violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. This decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by West Flagler and Bonita-Fort Myers, questioning whether offering online sports betting throughout the state via servers on tribal land constituted betting on tribal land.

However, the DC District Court of Appeals reversed the District of Columbia's court ruling in June 2023, granting the Seminole Tribe the freedom to operate in Florida once more.

This turn of events initiated a legal battle between West Flagler and various legal entities. In August, West Flagler sought a rehearing for the case it had lost in June against Debra Haaland, the secretary of the interior. The Circuit Court judges rejected West Flagler's claim that Haaland had violated the Administrative Procedure Act by allowing the 2021 compact to become law without intervening after 45 days.

In September, West Flagler filed a challenge against DeSantis and the Florida legislature, contending that DeSantis had overstepped his authority by approving the compact in the first place.

Despite their efforts, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals denied West Flagler's rehearing, prompting the filing of a motion to stay before their appeal to the Supreme Court. However, the Department of the Interior challenged the motion to stay, arguing that it did not meet certiorari conditions, which is an order for a higher court to review a case initially tried in a lower court. Ultimately, the DC Circuit Court rejected the motion to stay.

Undeterred, West Flagler and Bonita-Fort Myers recently requested the Supreme Court to halt the rollout of Hard Rock Bet by the Seminole Tribe. The Supreme Court subsequently granted the operators' request for a temporary stay.