Florida Betting Sites
Florida is home to numerous betting options both online and in the real world. Legal online gambling in Florida now includes horse racing betting, greyhound gambling and everyday fantasy sports. In the physical realm, Florida has horse racing gambling, bingo, conventional casinos and jai alai betting.
Sports gambling in Florida does not appear likely at the moment. The country has long been eyed as a major potential market for sport betting, but modifications to state law have made any upcoming gambling expansions harder as they currently take a statewide referendum initiated by petition.
Legal Online Betting Options
Let’s begin with a fast list of legal Florida betting sites and dig into all the details below.
Sports Gaming:
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Fantasy Sports:
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Horse and Greyhound Betting:
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Horse and Greyhound Racing
Online horse racing and greyhound betting have been legal in Florida for years and a variety of major racing sites accept customers from the Sunshine State. BetAmerica, TwinSpires and TVG all accept Florida customers and are licensed right here in america.
BetAmerica Review
TwinSpires Review
TVG Review
In November 2018, Florida voters approved Amendment 13 to end greyhound racing. The amendment made greyhound racing and betting on live greyhound races held in Florida illegal starting on January 1st, 2021.
Existing racetracks will still be permitted to offer poker and other games following the amendment takes effect, but they’ll no longer be in a position to host live greyhound races. This modification has no effect on online greyhound racing, which will stay legal because the change only seeks to prevent wagers put on races held at the state.
Fantasy Sports
The legal situation for fantasy sports in Florida is complicated and uncertain, but many daily fantasy websites have served the state for decades with no hindrance from local officials.
A number of attempts to formally legalize fantasy sports in Florida have collapsed over the decades because of disputes over how the action should be categorized and the complexity of tribal gaming contracts between the state and the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
A 1991 Attorney General opinion lumped season-long fantasy sports in with gaming and opined that it is probably illegal under state legislation, but the opinion is obsolete and doesn’t maintain legal weight. Just as lawmakers want to clarify the legal standing of fantasy sports, progress has been slow. Meanwhile, Florida residents are accepted at both FanDuel and DraftKings:
FanDuel Review
DraftKings Review
Skill Games
Florida gambling law allows games of ability only if entry fees don’t directly contribute to the prize pool. This signifies is that it’s authorized to pay an entrance fee and compete for a set prize, but to not perform in a competition where all of the entrance fees are collected to form the prize pool .
For instance, it would be lawful to host a paid-entry golf tournament if the organizers set fixed prizes which do not change regardless of the number of men and women enter the tournament. That same tournament could cross the line into illegal territory if prizes were determined by pooling entrance charges and paying the winners a proportion of the prize pool.
A 1990 opinion from the Attorney General summed it up as follows:
“Accordingly, I am of the view that a competition of skill, such as a hole-in-one golf competition, where the contestant pays an entrance fee, which does not constitute the decoration, for the chance to win a valuable prize by the exercise of skill, does not violate the gaming laws of this state. To the extent that previous views of this office may be inconsistent with the conclusion reached herein, they are hereby modified.”
WorldWinner.com, that is now the largest skill gaming site, accepts citizens of Florida but limits them from certain contests in which the prize pool isn’t fixed. Follow the link below to read more about WorldWinner:
WorldWinner Review
What about the state lottery?
Florida DOES NOT sell tickets online nor does it offer a subscription service. Of course, you can always try your luck at unauthorized lottery resellers that you can discover online. I don’t suggest going that route though. It is still illegal to sell lottery tickets on the internet from Florida so any site included in the business is totally untrue and most likely located abroad.
Nobody really knows how secure or legit foreign lottery resellers are. They claim to have a staff of agents located around the world whose job it is to go around and buy lottery tickets on behalf of consumers. The problem is there’s no way to confirm how it actually works.
If you want to play the lottery, then it is best to just go buy your tickets in person. You really don’t want to leave the fate of your own $40 million dollar at the hands of some foreign, quasi-legal site. Countries do have the authority to sell tickets online, but Florida does not yet do that.
Sports Betting at Florida
Sports gambling is illegal for aside from two exceptions: jai alai betting and cruise ships which sail to international waters to provide sports betting.
The exemption for jai alai betting dates back to some time in Florida through which jai alai was considerably larger than the obscure sport it’s today. Jai alai came to Florida in the 1920s, and eventually the state became somewhat of an epicenter for jai alai players around the world owing to warm weather year-round and easy access from Spain and Latin America, where jai alai is a favorite.
Through its heyday, jai alai was even exempted from state and federal sports betting prohibitions. Jai alai maintained a strong presence in Florida through the 1970s but entered a steady decline from the 1980s amid increasing competition from professional sports clubs, the lottery and South Florida casinos.
Nowadays, jai alai is a rather niche game and there are only a handful of active frontons in operation now. For the most part, jai alai survives now primarily due to Florida gambling laws that need card rooms to offer you some form of parimutuel wagering (such as jai alai, greyhound racing or horse racing gambling ). Therefore, most jai alai frontons exist primarily to facilitate other forms of gambling.
The other”exception” to Florida’s sports betting prohibition happens on the cruise ships managed by Victory Casino Cruises. Victory Casino Cruise ships leave twice each day out of Port Canaveral. These ships sail into international waters, open a casino and sportsbook to get a couple hours and then return to shore later the exact same day.
As far as a widespread legalization of sports betting, Florida does not appear likely to expand its gaming choices anytime soon. There have been no efforts to introduce sports betting legislation and there have been no recent efforts to legalize sports gambling.
A report by Eilers & Krejcik Gambling listed the 32 states likely to legalize sports gambling within five years of a Supreme Court ruling overturning the federal prohibition of sports betting. Florida wasn’t included in that listing, but it was included in a supplemental collection of 12 additional states inclined to legalize sports betting within seven years of such a judgment.
Will Sports Betting Ever Be Legalized at Florida?
Aside from the exceptions detailed above, sports betting remains illegal in Florida and that is unlikely to change any time soon. Florida has a complicated mixture of competing interests between lawmakers, Tribal concerns and even the Disney business that all have their own opinions on the growth of gambling.
The chances of Florida legalizing sports betting any time soon took a hit in 2018 when voters approved a ballot measure that basically stripped off the state legislature from authorizing any gaming expansion, including sports betting.
Formerly, the state legislature might have possibly drafted a new law to create Florida sports betting legal. Under the new amendment, Florida taxpayers would need to initiate a campaign to gather signatures to put the issue to a statewide referendum. Then, voters would have to accept that referendum by 60% to make sports gambling legal. It’s possible, but not too likely at this moment.
Is it lawful to bet online in Florida?
It depends on what your definition of”lawful” is. A couple of kinds of online betting are specifically legal in Florida (horses, greyhounds, fantasy and ability ). It is obviously illegal to operate an internet casino, card room or some other company that accepts wagers without the correct licensing.
What isn’t clear is whether it is a crime to place bets online at unlicensed betting sites. The main text from Florida’s gaming laws reads as follows:
“849.08 Gambling. Whoever plays or engages in any sport at cards, keno, roulette, faro or other game of chance, anytime, by any device whatever, to get money or other item of value, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second level…”
It seems fairly apparent that this law makes it a misdemeanor offense to participate in obvious gambling games like slot machines, blackjack, craps and so forth. The part that states”by any device whatever” can be easily translated to include the internet. On the other hand, the country has never once prosecuted one person for the mere act of placing bets online. Hunting down individuals playing blackjack in their computers just isn’t a high priority.
Online poker is a different matter. The above law does not explicitly mention”poker” although it does mention”any game .” But — there is always a but — that the term”other game of chance” seems to suggest that only games of chance have been prohibited. If poker is not a game of chance, this legislation does not apply.
It does not end there, folks. You and I may not believe poker a game of chance, but certain state and federal laws most certainly do specify poker as exactly that. Florida law does not specify games of chance nor does it mention poker and there is no case law to fall back on.
Someone would need to push the thing before we ever get Florida’s view on the situation of poker being ability or fortune. This likely won’t happen any time soon because nobody is searching down poker players either.
What the Future Holds for Internet Gambling in Florida
A growing number of states are in the process of legalizing online poker and casino games following a federal judge ruled in 2011 the Wire Act of 1961 only applies to sports betting. Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey have already legalized either internet poker, casino games or both. State legislators in Florida haven’t yet moved to change anything. No legislation is pending in this time.
It doesn’t seem like anything will be shifting in Florida anytime soon either. The state is mostly opposed to the growth of online gambling. Back in April of 2014, Florida governor Rick Scott expressed his opposition to expanding online gambling at the federal level with a letter led to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
In the years since, there haven’t been any real attempts to alter Florida gaming legislation. The present status quo looks quite likely to stay as it is for the near future.
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