A Washington, D.C.-based judge harshly chastised lawyers for the Biden administration Friday for failing to be prepared to answer questions about whether a deal that gives the Seminole Tribe of Florida control over sports betting in the state violates federal law.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich gave the U.S. Department of Justice until Tuesday to explain whether a sports-betting provision in the deal between the Seminoles and the state is in keeping with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or IGRA, which lays out the framework for tribal gambling.
Friedrich spent the first 30 minutes of a two-hour hearing wrangling with Rebecca Ross, a lawyer with the Justice Department’s Indian Resources Section, about the government’s unwillingness to take a position on the issue at the crux of a lawsuit filed by two Florida pari-mutuel operators that oppose the deal.
