Orlando Sentinel – The casino-hotel talk in Tallahassee has gone on for more than two years, so what’s one more week? Sen. Garrett Richter, head of the Senate committee on gaming, had planned to release a draft of a comprehensive gambling bill on Monday. But he announced Friday that his bill will need to wait a week, after the committee failed to complete its agenda during a two-hour session on Monday.
“As it turned out, we did not finish the workshop on ‘elements and options’ for inclusion in the proposed committee bill,” Richter, R-Naples, wrote in a memo released Friday. “Our discussion was helpful and productive, but there simply was not enough time to cover the issues presented. That being the case, I think the right choice now is to postpone filing the proposed committee bill until the committee completes its high-level review.”
That means the committee will continue to discuss “elements and options” on Monday, and Richter will publish the proposed committee bill on Feb. 24.
The bill would be voted on March 3, he said.
During the committee’s discussion, Richter said he favored one casino-hotel each in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Committee members also generally favored a gambling commission, and were split on decoupling, the idea that dog tracks, horse tracks and jai-alai frontons would not have to offer pari-mutuel events in order to maintain a slot license.
Las Vegas interests and gambling giant Genting have been asking the Florida Legislature for two years to consider allowing large casinos at non-pari-mutuels in at least South Florida. A bill was proposed in 2012, but it died in committee.
