More Florida lawmakers have filed bills designed to make the state take a tougher stance on gambling advertising, redefine slot machines and crack down on insider betting.
Sen. Jonathan Martin’s S1836 and Rep. John Snyder’s H1467 each propose a range of stiffer punishments for certain offenses, as well as clarifying certain definitions.
One of the most notable new provisions in Martin’s Senate bill would make advertising any illegal gambling, such as non-Seminole-operated sports betting or unlicensed casino gaming, a second-degree felony.
Running an unlicensed gambling house that allows people to pay money to play for anything of value will now be a third-degree felony, or a second-degree felony if the gambling operation is located close to certain sites such as educational institutions or places of worship.
The stricter stance is similar to the ones taken by Rep. Webster Barnaby’s H953 and Sen. Corey Simon’s S1404, which were also filed last week.
Senate bill would expand slot machines definition beyond real-money
S1836 would also revise the definition of slot machines to encompass any device or system integral with a video monitor that takes any form of “direct or indirect payment.” The bill’s language would remove reference to a customer needing to insert a coin and broadens the definition to include games that do not need to be played with real money. It excludes bingo and instant bingo from this definition.
Manufacturing, owning, selling or renting such slot machines would be a third-degree felony.
Snyder’s House bill, meanwhile, would classify making misleading statements about the legality of slot machines as a third-degree felony. That would be raised to a second-degree if it included the attempted sale or delivery of five or more slot machines.
H1467 would also make it a third-degree felony to operate or promote games of chance by lot.
Being caught with lottery ticket would be a felony
Martin’s bill also addresses the lottery by tweaking the exceptions to the ban on lottery games in the Sunshine State not run by the Florida Lottery.
I stiffens criminal penalties, not least by making anyone found with a prohibited lottery ticket on them guilty of a third-degree felony instead of a misdemeanor. Operating a lottery would be a second-degree felony, up from a third-degree felony.
The definition of legal, authorized instant bingo would be clarified to include both retail bingo and online or mobile bingo.
DFS definition appears murky
Snyder’s House bill also proposes regulating daily fantasy sports, which it defines as “a contest in which a participant pays an entry fee and manages a fantasy or simulation sports team composed of athletes from a professional sports organization with the opportunity to win a cash prize.”
However, the legislation’s language does not appear to offer a clear decision on whether against-the-house DFS is permitted.
Any operator or owner of any platform that offers DFS in violation of the bill’s provisions would be committing a felony of the third degree.
House bill would criminalize betting with insider info
Snyder’s bill would criminalize bribery of athletes, officials, or people with possible knowledge or connection to a team or a game with intent to influence them to lose a game or negatively affect their own performance as a third-degree felony.
That would also be the case for instances of any such person soliciting or accepting “any valuable thing whatsoever” with intent to negatively affect their own performance or team.
The bill also addresses insider betting, making it a third-degree felony to wager “anything of value” on the result of any professional or amateur contest with knowledge that the results are prearranged or predetermined.
