Business
Is Florida Warming to Las Vegas-Style Destination Casino Gambling?
Around the State
Artist's rendition of Resorts World Miami | Credit: GentingSeeking to lure high-rolling "whales" to Las Vegas-style destination-resort casinos in Miami and Broward County, promoters are betting that the 2012 Legislature will go along for the ride.
Amid the state's search for jobs, gamblers are getting a more friendly reception from lawmakers and Gov. Rick Scott.
Scott has said he would support casinos as long as local voters approve.
"I think we need to make sure the local communities are supportive of it," he said. "We ought to have a vote.''
This week he went further, telling the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, "I want to look at all the different options that [casino developers] are coming out with,"
Tea party groups could provide valuable political cover to conservative lawmakers typically opposed to gambling ventures.
South Florida Tea Party Chairman Everett Wilkinson, who fought casino legislation last session, now says lawmakers need “to ensure that Florida taxpayers get maximum benefit.”
“We in the tea party movement are not necessarily social conservatives,” he said. “We are fiscal conservatives interested in what is best for Florida taxpayers."
Wilkinson cautioned that his West Palm Beach-based group would oppose any plan that does not protect revenues for pari-mutuel racetracks as well as the Seminole Indian Tribe, which has a $6 billion, 20-year gambling compact with the state.
"We want to see something additive,” he explained.
Past opponents of expanded gaming -- including former Gov. Jeb Bush, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon -- have yet to speak out this time around. So casino developers have waded in.
In May, the Malaysia-based Genting Group purchased the Miami Herald building on Biscayne Boulevard, where it plans to build a $3 billion destination resort.
Miami New Times wryly noted this week that the "Resorts World Miami" project has been getting good press from the Miami Herald's "effusive and severely conflicted" coverage.
Meanwhile, gaming mogul Sheldon Adelson is eyeing the South Florida market for expansion of his Las Vegas Sands franchise. Adelson had closed-door meetings with several South Florida officials in the past week.
Genting Group Chairman Lim Kok Thay plays at baccarat table.Hotel-casino magnate Donald Trump, who has a home in Palm Beach, is also said to be angling for a high-end gaming project.
The overarching goal is to turn South Florida from a local market to a global playground that attracts the world's high-rollers. With nearly 15,000 slot machines already clattering away, the region is looking for international junkets to augment the mom-and-pop day-trippers.
A well-established second home for affluent South Americans, Miami could revive the heydays of Havana, whose casinos were a magnet for wealthy gamblers in the pre-Castro era.
More recently, the Las Vegas model -- which melds five-star dining, high-end retail, lavish entertainment and a sprawling convention business at megaresorts with 3,000-plus guest rooms -- transformed that city from a remote backwater to a glittering oasis.
The Genting Group's Miami project appears to be in that mold. Its proposed wave-like towers and sprawling lagoon harks to the over-the-top motif inspired by Bellagio, Wynn and other famed Strip resorts.
“The whales expect a level of amenities,” says former state senator and gaming expert Steve Geller.
But South Florida's big casino dreams could be a mirage, too.

Comments (12)
Skeletor could release some of the highway construciton contracts that he froze when he took office and create jobs in that field, and we'd get new roads and updated infrastructure. Just a thought
If one is not socially conservative, how can you possibly be fiscally conservative? What a dumb statement... but it does show the corruption of what is now called conservative. This is NEO-conservative. That ain't gonna work.
This whole thing with gambling is merely a short term fiscal gain but is actually throwing our children's future away via government sponsored vice, the worst of all vices. Whoa, wait a second... gov't IS vice.
If you are praying for the revival of Florida and Casino's are the answer, you're praying to the wrong god.
I am a "movement conservative" going all the way back to Barry Goldwater as a kid; also a strong free market advocate and libertarian Republican (www.rlc.org.) I don't use alcohol or other drugs, smoke, or gamble, and, though an agnostic rather than a religious believer, have the highest respect for my Christian Conservative allies in the GOP coalition. But on this issue they are WRONG. Fortunately the Tea Party movement is, though religious conservatives are welcome, largely composed of what I call "inate libertarians." Folks who believe in government "minding its own business" and NOT regulating our lives.
Florida could profit enormously from casino gambling. Hell. we have it already on every Indian reservation and race track. The sunshine state has so much to offer beyond gaming that casinos would make us the destination of choice for millions of additional tourists. Jersey City is an arm pit and Las Vegas no more than a blot in the hideously hot desert. Neither has ANTHHING BUT GAMBLING to offer. Florida would rake in multi billions.
We've had referenda on gambling in the past; 1970's if memory serves. Got voted down. Know who led the attack against it? The MONEY came from the New Jersey and Las Vegas gambling industry (along with the current horse and dog tracks) and the spokesmen from among our Baptist preachers. Hey guys, if you don't like gambling, DON'T GAMBLE. What others choose to do is none of my, or YOUR, business!
One particularly silly arguement; gaming will BRING organized crime to Florida! It is already HERE, has been ever since Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Liciano. Hadn't y'all noticed?
Don't want it in YOUR town? Fine, exercise "county option." The voters decide. Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay etc. would have casinos and y'all living in "East Dysentary" and "Pancake Flap" could vote it down. What's the problem?