Florida Harness Racing Suit Claims Pompano Park Decoupling Illegal

Florida’s beleaguered tackle racing manufacture is suing the state’s Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering o'er the unexampled “decoupling” jurisprudence that threatens to eradicate its summercater and livelihoods.

Also named inwards the lawsuit is Pompano Park. That’s Florida’s only if surviving harness racetrack, owned by Caesars Entertainment, which operates the Isle Casino there.

Thanks to a natural law passed past the body politic legislative assembly inward May, the running is no more yearner required to fulfill a quota of unrecorded harness racing as a condition of its permission to tender other, more lucrative, card games and gaming machines.

The same applies to pari-mutuel venues that were antecedently required to feed a quota of Canis familiaris racing and jai alai matches. But, crucially, non racetracks that run thoroughbred horseracing.

Unequal Protection

The Everglade State Standardbred Breeders & Owners Association (FSBOA) is the complainant inwards the lawsuit, seen past The Sun-Sentinel. FSBOA argues the natural law violates the match protection clause of the US Old Ironsides because it potentially punishes harness racing spell protecting pureblood racing.

“As a resultant of the passage [of the law], the rein in horsemen who have got historically participated inwards unrecorded rein in racing at Pompano Mungo Park are beingness treated differently, and inward a far to a lesser extent financially favorable manner, than the likewise situated horsemen who take part inwards thoroughbred racing at the facilities of Florida’s thoroughbred countenance holders,” reads the lawsuit, as reported past The Sun-Sentinel.

It is FSBOA’s contention that no more valid conclude exists for this difference inwards handling among horsemen performing similar, if not identical, gymnastic horse racing activities,” the cause continues.

FSBOA also argues that the decoupling measure qualifies as an unconstitutional “special law,” because it applies only when to Pompano Park and proprietor Caesars, and non the pureblood racetracks.

Caesars has not publically said whether it’s curtains for rein in racing at Pompano Park at the death of the 2022 calendar, although the outlook is that it will be. After all, the casino heavyweight has shareholders to please.

Seminole Compact Voided

The decoupling measures were tied to the unexampled Seminole compact, negotiated between the folk and Florida’s Republican River Governor Bokkos DeSantis.

The compact, worth billions to the country inwards revenue sharing, gave the Seminoles the scoop rights to online and retail sports betting in the state, as good as line roulette and dice games at its heptad Hard Rock casinos.

Decoupling, and the power to add together more gaming machines, plus sports betting inward partnership with the tribe, was thrown inwards as a grant to the pari-mutuels.

In November 2021, a federal jurist nullified the total compact because it allowed the Seminoles to accept sports bets remote tribal set down inward violation of the Amerind Gaming Regulatory Act.

Yet the enabling nation lawmaking that accompanied it remains.

The irony is that racetracks were originally granted identity card tables and gaming machines to assist acquire and protect unrecorded pari-mutuel racing, breeding, and racing infrastructure. That agency draw rein racing in Everglade State is potential to follow killed off past the play enlargement that was supposed to financial support it.