| Sports (online) | Live | Nov 7, 2023 | Monopoly Tribal | Mobile wagering (Hard Rock Bet) is deemed under the compact and § 285.710(13) to be conducted exclusively by the Seminole Tribe because the servers sit on tribal land, regardless of the bettor's physical location elsewhere in Florida. The Tribe must contract with any willing qualified pari-mutuel permitholder for marketing/branding services, paying the permitholder not less than 60% of profit from wagers by that permitholder's registered patrons. Hard Rock Bet first launched 2021-11-01, was suspended 2021-12-04 after a district-court ruling against the compact, and soft-relaunched 2023-11-07 following the D.C. Circuit's reversal, reaching broader/full access by early December 2023. Legal challenges continue in Florida state court over whether off-reservation mobile betting is independently lawful under state law. Fla. Stat. § 285.710 [1],[2],[3] |
| Sports (retail) | Live | Dec 7, 2023 | Monopoly Tribal | In-person sports wagering (plus craps and roulette) began Dec. 7, 2023 at the Tribe's three South Florida casinos (Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, Seminole Classic Casino, Seminole Casino Coconut Creek), exclusively by and through the Tribe; no other retail sportsbooks are authorized. Fla. Stat. § 285.710; 2021 Gaming Compact between the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the State of Florida (Apr. 23, 2021, as amended May 17, 2021) [1],[4] |
| Online casino | Not authorized | | | No Florida statute or compact provision authorizes online casino games generally; the 2021 compact's exclusivity for Covered Games (slots, banked card games, craps, roulette, sports betting, fantasy sports) is limited to those enumerated activities, and the compact commits the Tribe and State only to negotiate in good faith within 36 months toward possible online/mobile expansion of all Covered Games.[5] |
| Online poker | Not authorized | | | No statute or compact provision authorizes online peer-to-peer poker; the compact permits only in-person "designated player" poker formats at Tribe facilities under existing (non-online) exclusivity.[5] |
| Commercial casinos | Limited | | Competitive | Slot machines (no table games) are authorized only at licensed pari-mutuel facilities in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, approved by local referenda in 2004-2005; Florida's 2018 "Voter Control of Gambling" constitutional amendment (Art. X, § 30) now requires any further expansion of casino gambling (slots, card games generally) elsewhere in the state to go through a statewide citizen ballot initiative rather than the Legislature. Fla. Stat. § 551.102; Fla. Stat. § 551.106 [6],[7] |
| Tribal casinos | Live | | Monopoly Tribal | Seminole Tribe operates Class II/III gaming (slot machines, banked card games including blackjack, baccarat and chemin de fer, plus craps and roulette under the 2021 compact) at its Florida casinos, including Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood; compact runs through July 31, 2051. 25 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq. (IGRA); Fla. Stat. § 285.710 [5],[1] |
| Lottery | Live | Jan 12, 1988 | Monopoly State | Voters approved a constitutional amendment creating the lottery on 1986-11-04; first ticket sales and drawing followed in January-March 1988. Member of multistate games including Powerball (added 2009) and Mega Millions (added 2013). Fla. Const. art. X, § 15; Fla. Stat. ch. 24 [8] |
| iLottery | Not authorized | | | No evidence found of Florida Lottery online ticket/e-instant sales; secondary sources describe tickets as sold only in person through licensed retailers. Secondary source only.[9] |
| Daily fantasy | Limited | | Competitive | Traditional season-long, peer-to-peer DFS contests (DraftKings, FanDuel "classic" contests) continue to operate in Florida. However, the FGCC's September 2023 cease-and-desist letters characterized daily fantasy sports broadly as prohibited wagering on contests of skill under § 849.14, creating ongoing legal uncertainty for the format generally even though enforcement to date has targeted only pick'em-style products. Fla. Stat. § 849.14 [10],[11] |
| VGTs / VLTs | Not authorized | | | No statute authorizes video gaming terminals/VLTs at bars or truck stops outside the licensed pari-mutuel slot-machine framework (Broward/Miami-Dade) or the narrow § 849.161 skill-machine exemption.[6] |
| Historical horse racing | Not authorized | | | No statute authorizes historical-horse-racing (HHR) terminals in Florida. A related scheme, "barrel racing" pari-mutuel events paired with slot-machine licensure at Creek Entertainment Gretna (Gadsden County), was rejected by Florida courts/regulators as a basis for expanding slots outside Broward/Miami-Dade; this is distinct from HHR-machine wagering, which remains unauthorized statewide.[12] |
| Sweepstakes casinos | Contested | | | No dedicated sweepstakes-casino statute or legislative ban is currently in force; the Legislature has repeatedly failed to pass one (HB 953/SB 1404 and HB 1467 died in 2025; HB 591/SB 204, filed for the 2026 session to make "internet gambling" a third-degree felony effective Oct. 1, 2026, also died when the regular session ended March 13, 2026 without a final floor vote). Enforcement has instead come through existing gambling law: Attorney General James Uthmeier sued Stake (Stake.us) and VGW Holdings (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots/Casino, Global Poker) in Hillsborough County Circuit Court on August 19, 2026, alleging their dual-currency sweepstakes platforms are illegal online casinos under existing Florida gambling statutes and the Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Uthmeier: "These companies cannot hide illegal gambling behind a sweepstakes label." The suits seek injunctions, forfeiture of prior winnings, and civil penalties up to $15,000 per willful violation; no ruling on the merits had been identified as of this research. The AG's office separately subpoenaed other sweepstakes operators per secondary reporting, without filing suit against all of them.[13],[14],[15],[16] |
| Prediction markets | Not authorized | | | No Florida Gaming Control Commission cease-and-desist letter, Attorney General lawsuit, or formal regulatory action naming a CFTC-registered event-contract platform (e.g., Kalshi, Polymarket) was identified in this research (a follow-up search for this audit found none either), in contrast to the FGCC's active enforcement against offshore sportsbooks (Bovada, MyBookie, BetUS) and sweepstakes casinos. The FGCC's executive director has stated publicly that the Seminole Tribe's Hard Rock Bet is the only lawful online sportsbook operator in Florida, a position that would extend to prediction markets offering sports-outcome contracts under Florida's compact-exclusivity structure and general gambling prohibition, even without a platform-specific enforcement action. Florida sits in the 11th Circuit, which has not ruled on Kalshi's CFTC-preemption theory as of Oct. 2026.[17] |
| Skill games | Limited | | | § 849.161 exempts certain coin-operated amusement machines from the general slot-machine prohibition only if located in a qualifying arcade amusement center (50+ machines open to the public) or a licensed truck stop, and only if any prize won through application of skill is worth less than 75 cents. Machines paying higher-value prizes, or where chance (not skill) determines the outcome, fall under the § 849.16 slot-machine definition and are illegal; Florida courts and AG opinions have held that skill alone does not exempt a game if chance is also an operative element. Fla. Stat. § 849.161; Fla. Stat. § 849.16 [18],[19] |
| Card rooms | Live | | Competitive | Nonbanking poker and dominoes only (players compete against each other, not the house); some poker games may use a "designated player" format. A cardroom license is available only to a licensed pari-mutuel permitholder, operating at the same facility as the pari-mutuel wagering. Table caps: 10 tables in counties with authorized slot machine gaming, 30 elsewhere. Minimum age 18. Fla. Stat. § 849.086 [20] |
| Lottery couriers | Not authorized | | | No statute authorizes third-party online lottery courier services. The Florida Lottery has taken enforcement action against at least one unauthorized courier: in December 2024 it shut down theLotter, which was working with a licensed retailer (ZaZa Accessories) to resell tickets online, citing state-law violations. The Lottery's public position is that tickets must be purchased from authorized retailers only; whether any courier (e.g., Jackpocket) currently operates with tacit tolerance was not confirmed.[21] |
| Pick'em fantasy | Contested | | | FGCC sent cease-and-desist letters (Sept. 19, 2023, and a follow-up Jan. 31, 2024) to PrizePicks, Underdog Fantasy, and Betr, asserting their pick'em-style fantasy contests are illegal wagers on games of skill under § 849.14, warning of referral to the Attorney General's Office of Statewide Prosecution. Rather than litigate, PrizePicks and Underdog exited the Florida market by March 1, 2024. No court ruling on the underlying legal theory was identified. Fla. Stat. § 849.14 [10],[11] |
| Pari-mutuel | Live | | Competitive | Live and simulcast horse racing (thoroughbred, harness, quarter horse) and jai alai continue at licensed pari-mutuel permitholders. Greyhound racing was phased out after voters approved Amendment 13 in November 2018 (69% approval), which barred wagering on live dog races after 2020-12-31; other pari-mutuel and cardroom activity at former greyhound tracks was allowed to continue. A 2021 law "decoupled" cardroom/slot licensure from the live-racing requirement for harness/quarter-horse tracks and jai alai frontons, but not for thoroughbred tracks, which Gulfstream Park sued in August 2025 to challenge as an unconstitutional special law (litigation pending as of this research). Fla. Stat. ch. 550 [22],[23] |
| Advance deposit wagering | Contested | | | No Florida statute expressly authorizes or prohibits advance-deposit wagering (ADW) on horse racing. A 2016 bill (SB 728) would have created a licensing framework (proposed § 550.6346) and its preamble stated the problem directly: "advance deposit wagering is neither specifically authorized nor prohibited by Florida law, and yet advance deposit wagering companies deem advance deposit wagering to be legal in this state." That bill, and earlier attempts (HB 1397 in 2012, SB 994 in 2014), all died in committee. ADW operators have continued to treat the activity as legal in the absence of a statutory bar, but this remains a legal-gray-area status rather than a confirmed operational framework.[24] |
| Charitable gaming | Live | | Monopoly State | Charitable, nonprofit, and veterans' organizations active 3+ years (and certain condo/HOA/mobile-home resident associations) may run bingo/instant bingo for members; jackpots capped at $250 in value (max 3 per session/day), other game prizes capped at $50, instant bingo limited to the prize printed on the ticket. Minimum age 18 to play or help conduct a game. Fla. Stat. § 849.0931 [25] |
| Esports betting | Live | | Monopoly Tribal | The 2021 Seminole compact's sports-betting definition does not name esports specifically, but the Seminole-operated Hard Rock Bet sportsbook has live esports wagering markets in Florida: eSoccer (launched Nov. 2024, on EA Sports FC), eBasketball, eFootball (via SIS's H2HGGL league), and table-tennis (Setka Cup, via Beter's Florida vendor registration), with further esports content from Beter/EsportsBattle reported as forthcoming. No separate statute or regulator ruling on esports wagering was identified; it operates under the existing compact framework.[26],[27] |
| Social casino | Contested | | | Pure free-to-play social casino apps with no cash-out mechanism were not directly addressed in the statutes reviewed. However, dual-currency "sweepstakes" social casinos that let players redeem a second, promotional currency for cash (VGW's Chumba Casino/LuckyLand, Stake.us) are now the direct target of Florida AG litigation (filed Aug. 19, 2026) alleging they are unlicensed real-money casinos notwithstanding their "free"/sweepstakes framing; see sweepstakes_casino. A pre-existing private suit (Knapp v. VGW Holdings, M.D. Fla.) raises the same theory.[16] |