Florida Sports Betting Measure at Crunch Time, Barstool’s Portnoy Backs Petition
With the clock ticking, sports betting operators have started their versions of the two-minute exercise to encourage Florida’s registered voters to position a sports betting legalisation step on the November ballot. They’ve seemingly regular called on Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy to facilitate get the initiative’s petition crossways the goal line.
Proponents of the mensurate must hold 891,589 signatures from registered voters validated past FL elections officials past Feb. 1 in rules of order for it to qualify. That enter equals 8 percent of the votes dramatis personae inwards the state’s lastly presidential election.
According to information from the Florida Division of Elections, officials experience validated 346,826 signatures. That’s rough 40 percent of the threshold. In gain to the statewide total, Everglade State Education Champions, the patronise of the sports betting measure, must also have signatures from registered voters that rival or surpass 8 percent of the votes plaster cast in at to the lowest degree 14 of the state’s 27 congressional districts.
Florida Education Champions has received $37.2 million in contributions to boost the sports betting measure out across the state. According to commonwealth election finance records, nearly all of that has add up from DraftKings ($22.7 million) and FanDuel ($14.5 million). There hold also been 29 item-by-item contributions, but none go past $100.
DraftKings Sweetens the Pot with a Bonus
Besides funding the political litigate commission sponsoring the measure, DraftKings is also willing to expend yet more money to ensure the sports betting step gets on the FL ballot this year.
On Friday, the Boston-based gaming engineering society announced a crusade to capture to a greater extent people to signal the petition. If successful, DraftKings’ Florida customers would incur $100 inwards site credits.
“All you experience to come is print, sign, and mail inward yours by Jan. 19,” DraftKings tweeted from its main accounting and its sportsbook account.
Sign the petition to add together sports betting to the Sunshine State ballot!
All you feature to perform is print, sign, and get off inwards yours by Jan. 19.
If we smash the signature tune enumerate by Feb. 1, FL customers testament incur $100 DK dollars.
More Info: https://t.co/X52kABnUtS pic.twitter.com/Gg0Le0NdEy
— DraftKings Sportsbook (@DKSportsbook) January 14, 2022
Barstool’s Portnoy Now Involved
On Th night, Portnoy went online at Barstool Sports and on societal media sites to say he would “save sports gaming inwards Florida.” He made the annunciation from his rest home inwards South Florida.
Emergency Press Conference – I Am Here to Save Sports Gambling in FL pic.twitter.com/2Ne6DQ97D9
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 14, 2022
Portnoy’s Barstool is the brand name for single of William Penn National Gaming’s summercater betting operations. Two years ago, William Penn acquired a 36 percent share of the online sports media enterprise.
Portnoy said competitors who experience “trashed” him inward private now called on him to get more signatures. In addition, he said that if only the Seminole Tribe of Florida was allowed to offering sports betting inwards the province – assuming either the federal appeals tribunal overturns a judge’s order of magnitude that threw out the stocky or a unexampled powder compact limits sports betting to tribal lands only – bettors inward the country would sustain from a want of competitory options.
My enemies asked me to help,” Portnoy said. “We just now want the choice.”
Portnoy’s picture included a toll-free keep down and a QR encrypt that net ball people petition a petition.
What’s inwards the Sunshine State Sports Betting Measure
The proposed measure would amend the state’s make-up to earmark sports betting at pro sports stadiums and pari-mutuel venues as intimately as through and through roving apps useable crosswise Florida. It would require the nation legislative body to passing laws regarding licensing operators, regulating the activity, and taxing operator revenues. Any taxation dollars generated would go to the state’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.
If passed, operators that hold conducted mobile sports betting inwards 10 or to a greater extent states for at to the lowest degree i calendar twelvemonth would be allowed to launch in Everglade State within “eight months of the efficacious date of this amendment,” according to the measure’s text. Native American tribes with a gaming thickset in Everglade State would also live authorized to bid sports betting as well.
Last year, the Seminole Tribe of Everglade State and the land agreed to amend their tribal gaming compact. That sell gave the federation of tribes exclusive statewide rights to online and retail sports betting in interchange for payments, including $2.5 1000000000000 for the first-class honours degree V years of the deal. However, a federal judge has thrown come out the compact, saying it did non stick to to federal tribal gaming law.
The Seminole Tribe has appealed that ruling.