When I say first year, I do not mean its first year since Florida legislatures began squabbling with the Seminoles over the exclusivity and where the revenue from the blackjack expansion would go. I am talking about the first full year since the Seminoles installed their blackjack tables and threw open the doors, so to speak, to the new blackjack tables.
Since then the Seminoles have pulled in $2 billion, which they owe to the new blackjack tables and the traffic and subsequent profit from patrons playing other games when taking a break from blackjack.
Furthermore, since the gambling expansion that brought them blackjack, the Seminoles made the list in the 2011 Indian Gaming Industry Report as the fourth richest state when it came to tribal gaming. The State of Florida, home to the Seminole Tribe, came in at $2 billion. The richest state in tribal gambling was California at $7.7 billion. After California came Oklahoma at $3.1 billion and Connecticut at $2.2 billion.
It is my opinion that Florida could easily surpass Connecticut in the next year now that the squabbling between the Seminoles and Florida legislatures over the compact struck between the Seminoles and former governor Charlie Crist in 2007.
But seeing that $2 billion profit had to make state lawmakers happy that they did come to an agreement with the Seminoles and allowed them to keep blackjack in five of their seven brick and mortar casinos. After all the state profits from tribal gaming. Over the next five years the Seminoles are to pay $1 billion to Florida: $150 million in years one and two, $233 million in years three and four, and $234 in year five. However if 10% of the tribe