Card table at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Hollywood, FL (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A proposed gambling compact that would give four Seminole casinos exclusive rights to blackjack and other banked card games in Florida continues to hold the state capitol in thrall with the ulimate outcome still unclear.

Thursday, a powerful House committee takes up the issue.

Wednesday, a senate committee considered a version of the deal that would force Gov. Charlie Crist to accept the Senate's version of the compact and tie his hands from later modifying most details of the deal.

One powerful senator said, "limiting the governor" was not a problem for the Senate.

The brief Senate workshop on SB 622 did not generate public debate and no one representing the Seminole Tribe of Florida or pari-mutuel gambling operations rose to speak.

Meanwhile, negotiations over the exclusive gaming compact Crist has proposed for the tribe, largely as a means, he says, to raise much needed revenues, continued out of public view.

Under Crist's compact only the tribe and no other gambling interests would be allowed to operate casino-style banked card games in Florida. In exchange for that exclusive right, the state is betting to receive $445 million annually to plug holes in its education budget. Crist is so certain he will prevail he has incoporated the anticipated gaming revenues into his proposed $69.2 billion budget. 

Senate bill sponsor Dennis Jones, R-Seminole, said he expects the compact deal to reach the floor by early next month. 

The proposed Senate compact gives four Seminole casinos in Hillsborough and Broward Counties exclusive rights to banked card games for 15 years and gives the state’s seven casinos rights to slot machines. The bill voids Crist’s most recently proposed compact to extend the right to banked card games exclusivley to all Seminole casinos.

Crist signed an agreement with the Seminoles in 2007 giving it blackjack and other banked card games at all seven of its state casinos. The Florida Supreme Court struck down the deal, however, saying it was unconstitutional because the Legislature did not approve it. Crist's newest proposal, reached with the Seminoles last summer, once again puts blackjack in all of the tribe's casinos. The new deal is being opposed by pari-mutuels for giving exclusivity to the Seminoles.