{"id":16771,"date":"2012-01-11T09:39:24","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T14:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=16771"},"modified":"2012-01-11T09:39:24","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T14:39:24","slug":"florida-casino-resorts-could-threaten-bahamas-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/01\/florida-casino-resorts-could-threaten-bahamas-tourism","title":{"rendered":"Florida Casino Resorts Could Threaten Bahamas Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Proposed
Proposed Casino for Miami<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bad news for the Atlantis Resort and the yet to be constructed Baha Mar development. The Florida Senate\u00a0 on Monday passed legislation that opens the door to a multibillion-dollar expansion of the state’s gambling industry.<\/p>\n

The bill would create a state agency to regulate and enforce gambling throughout the State of Florida.<\/p>\n

The Florida State Gaming Commission would be initially be responsible for awarding three casino gambling licenses in south Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties.\u00a0 Each of the developers would be required to invest at least two billion dollars into their Las Vegas-styled casino\/hotel resort complexes.<\/p>\n

Florida’s current State laws allows only so-called pari-mutuels operated by the Seminole Indian tribe and selected jai alai courts and racetracks.<\/p>\n

The Florida Senate Regulated Industries Committee approved the bill by 7-3 in Monday’s vote, after an amendment was added that would allow voters to hold local referendums on whether to expand gambling in their individual counties.<\/p>\n

Another amendment gives the Indian casinos the right to operate full-fledged casino games at the same tax rates levied against the larger resort casinos.<\/p>\n

Big Las Vegas gaming companies aren’t the only ones interested in building casinos in Florida. Malaysia-based Genting Berhad, which controls casino resorts in Malaysia and Singapore, has already purchased a 14-acre piece of waterfront property in downtown Miami that currently houses the Miami Herald newspaper.<\/p>\n

The company has promised tens of thousands of new jobs if restrictions on gambling are loosened.<\/p>\n

Anti-gambling opponents include the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Disney World, who feel that gambling would tarnish Florida’s “family-friendly” image.<\/p>\n

Mega-casino resorts in Florida would be direct competition for Bahamian hotels and resorts like Atlantis and Baha Mar.<\/p>\n

Just last year, George Markantonis, managing director for Kerzner International Bahamas, expressed concern about the situation. He said high-end resorts in Florida wouldn’t be a problem just for Atlantis and Baha Mar, but would negatively affect the entire Bahamas tourism industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad news for Atlantis and Baha Mar. The Florida Senate has passed legislation that opens the door to a multibillion-dollar expansion of the state’s gambling industry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[109,27,153,313,107,33],"class_list":["post-16771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-atlantis","tag-baha-mar","tag-business-2","tag-casinos","tag-florida","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}