State lawmakers pass up a sure bet

A legislative committee was wrong to shred the latest gambling agreement reached by Gov. Charlie Crist and the Seminole tribe because the state now risks losing more than $100 million a year.

Hope remains for another negotiated settlement that would send a cut of the gambling profits to the state treasury without significantly increasing gambling. The Legislature should work to get that deal done.

Meanwhile, it is possible that the National Indian Gaming Commission will intervene. Federal officials might, as some legislators suggest, order the Seminole casinos to stop playing blackjack, a game never legalized in this state. The casinos might also be allowed to continue playing slots, without sharing its profits with the state.

American Indians are generally allowed to do on their reservations whatever is allowed anywhere else in any given state. Voters in 2004 approved a local option to allow slot machines in Broward and Miami-Dade horse tracks, dog tracks and jai-alai frontons. That appeared to permit the tribes to operate slots.

Crist was right to try to get something back for the state. In 2007 he signed a compact with the Seminoles, but he gave up more than the Legislature was willing to give, including an exclusive right to Las Vegas-style blackjack.

Rep. Bill Galvano, a Republican from Bradenton, and others have argued that the governor went too far and that blackjack is and should remain illegal. But it's no longer as easy as just saying no.

The state has put itself on a slippery slope toward more games, more venues and more socially destructive losses for gamblers. The lottery has expanded, and the legal slots in South Florida now include an electronic version of blackjack, which the Seminoles could use to defend their table games. Pari-mutuels are pressuring lawmakers to give them equal treatment.

The bingo-style machines that have long been legal in the Seminole casinos are all but indistinguishable from true slot machines. Large sums can be won or lost in them very quickly.

If the federal agents do pull the blackjack tables out of the casinos, other forms of gambling will take their place. Crist is morally justified in trying to get the most money for taxpayers out of the state's weak bargaining position.

The Legislature's principled opposition to gambling won't stop the vast majority of the games now being played.

At this point, the best way to deal with the gambling vice is to limit it to existing casinos and tax it.