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For the longest of times, the Seminole Tribe has had a monopoly on Florida sports betting. Five years to be exact, that’s when they signed a, get this, 30-year compact with Governor Ron DeSantis.
The compact gave the tribe, and the tribe only, exclusive rights to offer sports betting throughout the state. The tribe obliged with Hard Rock — the casino they already owned — and has made ’em billions from the deal.
The tribes don’t have to report numbers publicly, but the napkin math is enough to know Florida is one of the biggest legal betting states in the country. Even more so since the tribes can offer mobile sports betting through the Hard Rock Bet app, not just in-person betting.
Things were going smooth… until prediction markets hit the scene en masse the past two years. Kalshi and Polymarket first, but now even sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings work (using their prediction market product, not the sportsbook). It appears to be doing damage to the Seminole’s business cause they are now fighting back against DraftKings specifically.
Don’t go anywhere if you want all the bombshell details packed in this lawsuit that just dropped in the last week.
The Seminoles Go For DraftKings Throat
At this point, lawsuits are the norm. States are suing prediction markets, who then counter-sue, and even the Commodity Futures Trade Commission has gotten lawsuits. So the Seminoles getting in on the court case fun was zero surprise… until they asked DraftKings to give them all their Florida revenues.
The detail was stuffed into the tribe’s 72-page complaint — filed in Broward County Circuit Court — asking a judge to block DraftKings’ prediction markets and fantasy sports offerings in Florida. The DraftKings sportsbook doesn’t work in Florida but those two other products do.
But on top of getting DraftKings out of the Sunshine State, the tribes also want all the revenue and profits earned in the state by DraftKings. Heck, DraftKings CEO Jason Robins is personally named in the lawsuit, including in a civil racketeering claim. So yeah, this goes a little harder than just a cease-and-desist letter.
The tribe’s lawsuit is saying the same exact thing others are: DraftKings Predictions is a sports betting app masked as a prediction market. And if it’s a sportsbook, then that infringes on the tribes sovereignty inside Florida to only offer sports wagering.
“DraftKings changed the label on the price. It did not change the price, the product, or the transaction,” the complaint states.
That zinger of a line specifically refers to an August 28 change when DraftKings allegedly replaced traditional American betting odds with contract prices displayed in cents for Florida customers. Earlier that month, the federal regulator overseeing prediction markets had warned that sportsbook-style odds could mislead consumers about what they were trading.
It’s not just the pseudo-sports betting the Seminoles are mad about. So too is the fact that DraftKings offers “sports contracts” to customers as young as 18 — all while Florida’s minimum sports betting age is 21. The complaint also points to college player sports contracts, which are prohibited under the Seminoles’ compact.
You can see the Seminoles anger, right? We mean, the compact we mentioned before wasn’t cheap. The tribe will pay the state of Florida $2.5 billion over the next five years for the sports betting monopoly rights. And here we have DraftKings not paying anywhere near that much… and having the same rights, plus a few extra (lower age minimums and prop-style bets).
Yeah, we’d be livid too if we were the Seminoles.
DraftKings, Seminoles Have Bad Blood
It’s actually noteworthy that the Seminoles are coming after DraftKings only. Not FanDuel Predicts. Not even Kalshi, the top prediction market in the country.
Is that because DraftKings Predictions is dominating the Florida market? Probably not. More than anything, it’s just that the tribe hates DraftKings guts — for years now.
Where do we even start? Well, for one, DraftKings put $22.7 million into a ballot campaign to open Florida’s market to more sports betting apps, not just Hard Rock Bet. The goal was to bring this to a public vote, except the measure never qualified for the November 2022 ballot. Still, it’s the attempt that probably stung the tribe.
But it gets nastier than that. The Seminoles now allege DraftKings secretly bankrolled lawsuits attacking their compact, including the challenge brought by West Flagler Associates… that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. The Seminoles won, but it was multiple years of court fighting — and it even forced the betting app offline at points until things were settled.
The tribe alleges that DraftKings also formed and funded Protect the Constitution LLC, which brought another challenge to Florida’s implementation of the compact in 2025. That case initially got thrown out, but DraftKings formally joined an amended complaint on September 17 and identified itself as the LLC’s sole member. No guessing here, DraftKings directly outed themselves.
So yeah, long story short, both these companies hate each other. That, more than anything, is what probably spurred the highly specific lawsuit. So far, the Seminoles have routinely beaten DraftKings in court… will they win again? We’ll monitor the situation until there is a decisive resolution.
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