Seminole Tribe Sues DraftKings and Its CEO, Calling the Florida Prediction Market an Illegal Sportsbook

The Seminole Tribe of Florida sued DraftKings, chief executive Jason Robins and the company’s prediction market arm on October 8, asking a state court in Broward County to shut down what the complaint calls an “illegal sportsbook” in Florida. The 72-page filing brings five counts, including a Florida RICO claim against Robins personally.

The complaint was e-filed in the Circuit Court of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit and names DraftKings, Inc., Robins and GUS III LLC, the subsidiary that trades as DraftKings Predictions. It targets two products. One is Pick6, the fantasy game the tribe says launched in Florida in January. The other is the sports section of the “DraftKings Sports & Casino” app, which the filing says arrived in June on top of a prediction market that went live in December 2025. Everything in it is an allegation at this stage.

A Monopoly Worth $1 Billion a Year

The tribe has held the exclusive right to offer online sports betting in Florida since the 2021 Gaming Compact, a 30-year deal signed by Governor Ron DeSantis and Seminole Chairman Marcellus Osceola Jr. The compact treats a mobile bet as placed where the tribe’s servers are, on its own land, and that is how Hard Rock Bet can take wagers statewide. In return the tribe guaranteed the state at least $2.5 billion over the first five years.

The real payments have run ahead of that. Florida received $1.04 billion under the compact in the fiscal year that ended June 30, more than $200 million above the year before, the News Service of Florida reported. The complaint argues that every bet DraftKings takes “siphons away revenue” from both governments.

So what does the tribe want? A declaration that both products are illegal gambling, an injunction, and disgorgement of all profits DraftKings has made in Florida, plus nominal damages and legal fees. The filing says recovered money would go first to consumer protection and problem-gambling recovery programs.

The Tribe Calls It a Third Attempt

The complaint casts the two products as DraftKings’ third run at Florida. It says the company gave $22.7 million to Florida Education Champions, a committee behind a ballot initiative that would have opened online betting to other operators. The initiative collected 472,927 valid signatures against the roughly 891,589 it needed, according to the filing.

Then came the courts. The tribe alleges DraftKings funded the pari-mutuel challenge known as West Flagler, which kept the tribe’s online betting switched off for nearly two years. The Supreme Court’s docket shows that petition was denied on June 17, 2024, with Justice Kavanaugh noting he would have granted it. A second challenge failed at the Florida Supreme Court, and the filing says DraftKings formally joined a third in Leon County on September 17 this year.

The RICO Count Against Robins

The racketeering count rests on control. The complaint says Robins holds over 88% of DraftKings’ voting power and personally directed each launch, and it treats every wager as a separate predicate act under the Florida RICO Act. It also quotes his own words back at him, including a letter to investors issued with the first-quarter results that marked DraftKings’ push into prediction markets. In it, the filing says, Robins acknowledged that those customers “are experiencing losses more quickly” than sportsbook customers.

The tribe says the gap in protections explains why. Florida’s sports betting age is 21, yet the filing alleges DraftKings takes customers as young as 18 and offers college player props, which the compact does not allow.

DraftKings Says Federal Law Covers It

DraftKings isn’t backing down. The company said in a statement to CBS12 News: “DraftKings’ prediction markets offering operates in accordance with applicable law and the federal regulatory framework established under the Commodity Exchange Act.” It called Pick6 “a peer-to-peer fantasy sports variant” that “is not sports betting,” and said it remains “confident in our legal position.”

The tribe’s answer to the fantasy defense is a 1991 advisory opinion from then Attorney General Robert Butterworth. The complaint says it found pay-to-play fantasy contests illegal under state gambling law and has “never been withdrawn or superseded.” Florida regulators have been here before. The Gaming Control Commission told PrizePicks, Underdog Fantasy and Betr on January 31, 2024 that they had 30 days to stop offering pick’em games, The Capitolist reported at the time.

DeSantis Expects Federal Courts to Decide

Governor Ron DeSantis said on the day of the filing that the compact “clearly contemplated that they would have the ability to run this in Florida.” He added that the wider fight over prediction markets won’t end in a county courtroom: “Ultimately, you are going to see federal decisions, probably at appeals and higher.”

Some have already arrived. On September 16 the Ninth Circuit held that two California tribes were likely to succeed in claims that Kalshi’s sports event contracts on tribal lands violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. The Seminole case takes a different road, through a Florida statute that the complaint says lets a tribe with a compact sue to stop illegal gaming. It asks the court for a “speedy hearing” on the declaration.

DraftKings holds sports betting licenses in about 27 states and Washington, D.C., according to the complaint. The tribe says it has no license to conduct any form of gambling in Florida.