Florida Governor Rick Scott, has gone public on backing casinos for cities like Miami Beach and Tampa. However before this can happen state legislation has to change in a similar way to the legislation amendments a few years back in Dade-Broward-County, which enabled casinos at racetracks and sports venues. Scott, who opposed casinos during his electoral campaign, said: “As you all know, I stated during my campaign that I did not want to have state revenue linked to gaming. But, as we have already authorized gaming in the state, we must consider the idea to develop (the industry) further”.

Fort Lauderdale Republican senator, Ellyn Bogdanoff, said that there will be a transformation in state politics. “I am not in favor of gaming expansion, but as that train is already running and there is no one to stop it, I believe that what we have to do is to take advantage of this, creating the proper infrastructure for better control designing a better model.”

The general idea is to create integral resorts as tourist destinations with multimillion dollar investments, in cities such as Miami Beach and Tampa, with a minimum 75 miles distance between them. Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts are two major operators already interested in such projects, as they run similar ventures in Las Vegas, Macao and Singapore.

Republican Senator Dennis Jones, representing the Seminole nation, who is president of the State Senate Commission Regulating Industry in charge of gaming control at the Seminole casino operations in Florida, said that he is already drafting legislation to authorize four or five tourist casinos in Florida, as well as the creation of a gaming commission to control the new industry.

One of the legislation projects includes licensing costs of at least US$50 million per casino, as well as all other tax and levies payable by a gaming operation. Something that everyone agrees upon is the fact that state gaming revenues would go a long way to finance a state budget deficit running at present at US$3.5 billion. (E-01.11.11)

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