The Seminole Tribe of Florida has filed a lawsuit against DraftKings and its chief executive, accusing the gambling giant of running what amounts to an illegal sports betting operation across the state. The 72-page complaint, filed in Broward County Circuit Court, names DraftKings Inc., CEO and co-founder Jason Robins, and GUS III LLC, the entity doing business as DraftKings Predictions, as defendants.
According to WFTV, the lawsuit targets DraftKings Pick6 and sports offerings available through the DraftKings Sports & Casino app, alleging they constitute unlicensed sports betting that violates both Florida law and the 2021 Seminole Compact. The suit also alleges Robins personally directed the launch and expansion of DraftKings’ Florida offerings. As Florida Politics reports, the Tribe, which operates Hard Rock Bet, alleges that DraftKings is violating state law and the compact through a Florida platform the complaint describes as essentially the same as the company’s legal betting platforms in other states.
What the Complaint Targets
The Tribe alleges Florida users can wager through the app on moneylines, point spreads, game totals, player performances and combinations of multiple outcomes, contending the offerings function like a traditional sportsbook despite how they’re labeled. The complaint also takes issue with the DraftKings “Super App,” which the same Florida Politics report says combines casino betting, sports wagers, lotteries and prediction markets without, in the Tribe’s view, any meaningful distinction between prediction markets and products it considers illegal in Florida. Prop bets on college sports and an alleged lack of minimum age-21 verification are also challenged in the filing.
The Tribe further alleges that DraftKings promotes its Florida product as gambling, complete with bonuses to entice bettors and compulsive-gambling helpline warnings in its advertising, according to Florida Politics. DraftKings, for its part, maintains that DraftKings Sportsbook and DraftKings Casino are not available in Florida, and that its Florida app instead offers prediction markets, free-to-play pools, pick’em contests and horse racing. The company says Pick6 is a peer-to-peer fantasy sports product and that its other Florida sports offerings are prediction markets rather than sports betting.
Five Counts and a RICO Claim Against the CEO
The complaint includes five separate counts, among them a Florida Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act claim against Robins personally, an alleged violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and a common-law unfair competition claim. It also seeks an action to stop the alleged illegal gambling and asks a judge to formally declare that DraftKings Pick6 and the app’s sports betting features are illegal under Florida law. The Tribe accuses DraftKings of misleading Florida consumers about the legality and regulation of its products.
As of Thursday morning, DraftKings had not filed a response to the lawsuit, per WFTV. In a statement reported by Yahoo Finance, the company said, “We have been thoughtful in how we launched DraftKings Predictions and have done so in a way that is respectful of all stakeholders.”
What the Tribe Is Asking a Judge to Order
The Seminole Tribe is seeking an injunction that would prevent DraftKings from operating, advertising or processing sports wagers anywhere in Florida, along with surrender of profits and revenue the Tribe alleges DraftKings earned through its Florida operations. The Tribe says any money recovered would be prioritized for consumer protection and problem-gambling treatment, prevention and recovery programs. It is also seeking nominal damages, legal fees and interest, and attorneys for the Tribe intend to seek permission to pursue punitive damages at a later stage.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis weighed in on the broader dispute, saying the Tribe was “given the purview on the sports betting” and that the “agreement clearly contemplated that they would have the ability to run this in Florida,” according to the same Florida Politics report.
A Compact Worth Billions, Still Being Tested
The 2021 gaming compact grants the Seminole Tribe exclusive rights to offer online sports betting in Florida through Hard Rock Bet, in exchange for the Tribe sharing gaming revenue with the state, including a guaranteed minimum of $2.5 billion during the compact’s first five years. That exclusivity is tied to nearly a billion dollars in annual state revenues, per Yahoo Finance. Opponents have challenged the compact in both federal and state court since it took effect, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear one such challenge in 2024, leaving the compact in place.
A separate challenge from West Flagler Associates Ltd. and Bonita-Fort Myers Corp., which argued the compact and its approval by the Legislature were unconstitutional, was rejected by the Florida Supreme Court, as Florida Phoenix reported. That court found the challengers should have instead asked for a declaration that the compact was invalid and an order blocking its enforcement, rather than deciding the compact’s substance. Under that compact, the Tribe is allowed to take sports bets through a hub-and-spoke network connecting remote devices to servers on tribal land.
Florida’s Broader Fight Over Fantasy Apps and Prediction Markets
This isn’t the first time Florida regulators have scrutinized fantasy-sports and prediction platforms. The Florida Gaming Control Commission previously sent cease-and-desist letters to three fantasy sports operators, Underdog Sports LLC, SidePrize LLC (doing business as PrizePicks), and Betr Holdings Inc., over potentially illegal betting games, according to the Sports Business Journal. The commission said similar letters would eventually go to DraftKings and FanDuel, which had not initially received them, though the three operators appeared to keep offering their games in Florida months later.
Meanwhile, apps including Kalshi, Polymarket, FanDuel Predicts and DraftKings Predictions remain available to Florida residents on their phones, per Yahoo Finance, which also notes that such prediction-market apps are accessible to adults as young as 18 and are not held to the same consumer-safety standards as licensed sportsbooks. Separately, Gaming America has reported that sports betting through the Hard Rock Bet app remains operational, though limited. The new lawsuit puts the question squarely before a Broward County judge: whether fantasy contests or prediction markets fall outside the Seminole Compact, or whether they amount to unauthorized sports betting under Florida law. None of the allegations in the complaint have been proven in court.
