The Seminole Tribe sues DraftKings and accuses CEO Jason Robins of racketeering, calling its Florida app an illegal sportsbook

The Seminole Tribe of Florida, which runs Hard Rock Bet, e-filed a lawsuit at 8:53 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, in Broward County circuit court against DraftKings, Inc., its founder and CEO Jason Robins, and GUS III LLC, which does business as DraftKings Predictions (Complaint; Florida Politics). The filed copy carries no case number. The complaint runs 72 pages (Florida Politics).

Everything about DraftKings’ conduct below is the Tribe’s allegation, not a finding. The complaint alleges that in January 2026 Robins directed the launch of DraftKings Pick6 in Florida, and that in June 2026, at his direction, DraftKings launched a “Super App” branded “DraftKings Sports & Casino,” whose “Sports” tab offers game lines, moneylines, point spreads, over/unders, player props and parlays. It alleges DraftKings “has no license to conduct any form of gambling, including sports wagering, in Florida,” and that, “unlike the Tribe, which shares revenue with the State,” Robins “has structured DraftKings’ operations to avoid paying even a penny in taxes to the State” (Complaint). The Tampa Bay Times reports the Tribe is asking the court “to hand over the money DraftKings made in Florida” (Tampa Bay Times).

DraftKings’ answer, in full: “DraftKings’ prediction markets offering operates in accordance with applicable law and the federal regulatory framework established under the Commodity Exchange Act. Furthermore, DraftKings Pick6 is a peer-to-peer fantasy sports variant centered on a simple more or less mechanic tied to individual athlete performance metrics and is not sports betting. While the company has deep respect for Seminole Tribe’s sovereignty, we remain confident in our legal position” (NBC 6; Tampa Bay Times). Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking in Miami Thursday, said 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” (Florida Politics).

Your stake: for every $100 that Florida bettors lose on the Tribe’s own sportsbook, net of payouts and promotional credits, the compact sends the state $13.75; bets placed through a pari-mutuel partner’s brand are shared at 10% (2021 compact; Florida Senate; our arithmetic). Compact payments from all of the Tribe’s Florida games, slots and tables included, came to $1.04 billion in the year that ended June 30, money state economists count toward the General Revenue Fund (Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research). The complaint alleges DraftKings pays the state nothing on the bets it takes (Complaint).

The money

The money runs one direction under the 2021 compact: the Tribe pays the State. The Tribe’s revenue-share payments must total at least $1.5 billion by the end of the third revenue-sharing cycle and $2.5 billion by the end of the fifth, with any shortfall due within 30 days, and may not fall below $400 million in any cycle of the first five years (2021 compact, Part XI.C.4). Senate staff put it plainly: “The revenue share payments must be paid by the Seminole Tribe to the state” (Florida Senate staff analysis). The Tribe pays 13.75% of net win from sports betting, or 10% on wagers placed through a brand marketed by a qualified pari-mutuel permitholder (Florida Senate President’s compact summary). The compact ends July 31, 2051 (2021 compact; Florida Senate President’s compact summary).

The payments are growing fast. State economists count $1.04 billion of revenue share from tribal gaming in fiscal 2025-26, up 27.8% from $817.3 million the year before, or $227 million more (our arithmetic), and forecast $1.14 billion for 2026-27 and $7.65 billion for the General Revenue Fund over the forecast period; “sports betting continues to grow at a significant rate in Florida” (Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research). The News Service of Florida reports the same $1.04 billion, “more than $200 million more than the previous year” (News Service of Florida via Sun Sentinel).

DraftKings is bigger than the Tribe’s Florida sportsbook. Per the complaint, it reported nearly $6.1 billion of revenue in fiscal 2025 and holds sports-betting licenses in about 27 states and Washington, D.C., and Robins controls more than 88% of its voting power through a dual-class structure; the complaint quotes DraftKings’ annual report that he “holds approximately 89% of the voting power” (Complaint). It has fought this fight before: per the complaint, DraftKings gave $10 million in June 2021 to Florida Education Champions, the committee behind a ballot initiative to authorize online sports betting by operators other than the Tribe, and $22.7 million by the campaign’s end (Complaint, citing the Miami Herald). The complaint says DraftKings spent “more than $20 million on a ballot initiative to undermine the Tribe’s exclusive rights” and that it failed, “as did a series of lawsuits that DraftKings secretly funded for years” (Complaint; Covers).

Those lawsuits are the complaint’s newest charge, and all of it is the Tribe’s allegation. It says DraftKings funded West Flagler Associates’ and Bonita-Fort Myers Corporation’s federal challenge to Interior’s approval of the compact, which won in district court in 2021, lost in the D.C. Circuit in 2023 and was denied Supreme Court review in 2024, and that the Tribe suspended online sports betting “for nearly two years while the case was on appeal,” which “deprived the State of revenue for those two years.” It says DraftKings “secretly funded” a Florida Supreme Court petition the court denied in 2024, and in 2025 “secretly formed an anonymous Delaware LLC called Protect the Constitution” to sue in Leon County (Complaint). Leon Circuit Judge Jonathan Sjostrom dismissed that suit for lack of standing, faulting the group for failing to “provide meaningful information regarding the identity, activities, location” of its members, without ruling on the compact (CasinoBeats). On Sept. 17, 2026, per the complaint, an amended complaint in that case, No. 2025CA00718, confirmed that DraftKings is now the LLC’s sole member and joined DraftKings as a plaintiff (Complaint; LegalSportsBetting.com).

The complaint adds two consumer allegations. It says DraftKings offers its products in Florida to 18- to 20-year-olds despite knowing Florida’s minimum sports betting age is 21, advertising its Sportsbook as “21+” in most states while offering Predictions to people “18+” (Complaint; LegalSportsBetting.com). And it says that on Aug. 28, 2026, DraftKings switched Florida users from the American odds licensed sportsbooks use to decimal prices, “which represent how many cents a bet costs to achieve a payoff of $1” (Complaint). It quotes Robins on DraftKings’ fourth-quarter 2025 earnings call: “[m]ost customers do not really even understand the difference” between Predictions and the Sportsbook, and “in essence, it is the same general message to the customer” (Complaint; Covers).

Both sides fund the governor’s race. DK Crown Holdings Inc., a wholly owned DraftKings subsidiary, gave Friends of Byron Donalds PAC $500,000 on Dec. 23, 2025; the Seminole Tribe gave the same PAC $1,000,000 each on Aug. 26, 2025, Dec. 9, 2025, Feb. 25, 2026 and June 29, 2026, and $1,500,000 on Sept. 9, 2026, $5.5 million in all (Florida Division of Elections; SEC filing; our sum). The Tampa Bay Times reports the same half-million and $5.5 million (Tampa Bay Times). In the attorney general’s race, DK Crown gave Friends of James Uthmeier $25,000 on April 15, 2025, and the Tribe gave it $25,000 on March 11, 2025 and $25,000 on Nov. 13, 2025 (Florida Division of Elections). DK Crown Holdings is not a defendant in the suit (Complaint). The Tribe also gave the Florida Democratic Party $100,000 on Aug. 7, 2026, and nothing more to the Donalds PAC after Sept. 9; the state database showed no contribution of $10,000 or more from DraftKings or DK Crown since Aug. 1, 2026, as of Oct. 11, though reports lag (Florida Division of Elections).

The Tribe’s lawyers are Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, with Derek L. Shaffer as lead counsel and Jason D. Sternberg signing, and Hobbs, Straus, Dean & Walker’s Joseph H. Webster (Complaint).

How it works

A tribal gaming compact is an exclusivity contract priced in revenue share. The 2021 compact gives the Tribe the exclusive right to run sports betting in Florida (Tampa Bay Times), and the Tribe pays the State a share of what it wins. The compact says what happens if that exclusivity breaks: the guaranteed minimum obligation ceases if the State violates the Tribe’s exclusivity and fails to cure within 180 days, and if the Tribe loses its exclusive right to offer sports betting under the compact’s exclusivity sections, its minimum payments fall by 10% (2021 compact, Part XI.C.4(e)). The News Service of Florida describes the payments as ones “which the Tribe could suspend if its monopoly on sports betting is punctured” (News Service of Florida via Sun Sentinel). No source we read says DraftKings’ products have triggered any of those clauses.

The suit itself has five counts: an action to enjoin illegal gambling under Florida law, against all defendants; a Florida racketeering count against Robins only; deceptive and unfair trade practices, unfair competition and declaratory relief against all defendants. The Tribe asks the court to declare Pick6 and the Super App sportsbook illegal gambling in Florida, enjoin “any sports wagering activity in Florida,” order “restitution and disgorgement of all profits, revenues, and other ill-gotten gains” from Florida operations, applied in part to consumer protection and problem-gambling programs, and award nominal damages, fees and interest. It does not yet seek punitive damages; a footnote says the Tribe intends to ask permission to add them (Complaint). The Tribe asks for assignment to Broward’s Complex Business Division, citing complex issues, extensive discovery, numerous parties and an amount in controversy over $250,000 (Complaint); the complaint puts no dollar figure on DraftKings’ Florida profits (LegalSportsBetting.com), and Fox 13 reports that “Court documents have not yet established the exact monetary amount DraftKings gained through its Florida offerings” (Fox 13).

What could still stop it

DraftKings’ defense is federal. It says its prediction markets operate under the Commodity Exchange Act and that Pick6 is a peer-to-peer fantasy game, not sports betting (NBC 6). Every claim about what DraftKings does in Florida is the Tribe’s, filed Oct. 8 and not yet tested in court. No case number appears in the sources we read, and none gives a DraftKings Florida revenue figure. Gaming attorney Daniel Wallach predicted DraftKings would try to move the suit to federal court, “similar to what Kalshi has done whenever it’s been sued in state court over prediction markets,” and said “the request for injunctive relief may be designed to prevent removal” (Card Player); we found no reported removal as of Oct. 12. It remains unclear when a Broward judge will rule on the requested injunction (Fox 13). The State of Florida is not a party to the suit (Complaint), though the governor backed the Tribe’s reading of the compact Oct. 8, while saying “I haven’t read the thing” and predicting “federal decisions, probably at appeals and higher,” and that Congress would “probably” act (Florida Politics; WLRN / News Service of Florida). The News Service of Florida calls the suit “the first test in Florida of how the state interacts with new online gambling marketplaces, including Kalshi and Polymarket” (WLRN / News Service of Florida). The tribal front is not uniform: four tribes from California and Oklahoma launched prediction-market apps with Kalshi on Oct. 6, and Fortune writes that “a crack is forming in Indian country’s united front against prediction markets” (Fortune).

Why it matters across Florida

The compact is a General Revenue line, not a casino story. At about $1.04 billion a year and forecast to top $1.1 billion every year ahead, compact revenue share flows to the state’s General Revenue Fund (Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research). A court fight over who may take a sports bet in Florida is a fight over whether that line keeps growing, and both sides of it have written checks to the leading candidate for governor (Florida Division of Elections; see the Donalds story).

What to watch

A case number and DraftKings’ first filing in Broward, including any attempt to remove the case to federal court. The Complex Business Division assignment. The Leon County Protect the Constitution case, No. 2025CA00718, now with DraftKings as a named plaintiff. Whether the Tribe moves to add punitive damages. Any statement from the State or the attorney general. The next compact payment and the next state revenue estimate. The governor’s race, Nov. 3.