Florida Decoupling Bill Filed For 2026 Legislative Session

[Wandering Eyes]

The first decoupling salvo of Florida's 2026 legislative session that could lead to Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs being able to cease live racing while retaining their gaming rights was fired Tuesday morning when Rep. Adam Anderson submitted a bill that shares similarities to a controversial initiative he backed in 2025 that cleared the House and one committee in the Senate.

Like the 2025 attempt, the bill that will be in play when the new legislative session begins Jan. 13 would allow either of Florida's two Thoroughbred tracks to give notice of racing suspension as of July 1, 2027, and racing would be required to continue for at least three years after that notice of intent got filed.

“Nothing like right before Christmas to drop a bill,” Lonny Powell, the chief executive officer of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association (FTBOA), told TDN Dec. 23 about 90 minutes after the bill got filed. “A little bit of Scrooge showing up in the Christmas sleigh, but the Scrooge hasn't made it crash or go off course yet.”

New to the changes proposed in HB 881 is language that would amend an existing pari-mutuel licensure law regarding to the leasing of facilities so it includes the ability “to lease any and all of the facilities of any other holder of a valid pari-mutuel permit or a Thoroughbred training center holding a valid license issued by the commission, when located within a 50-mile radius of each other; and such lessee is entitled to a permit and license to conduct intertrack wagering and operate its race meet or jai alai games at the leased premises.”

Decoupling has been a major concern in Florida for the better part of two decades. But it wasn't until this past January when the issue of Gulfstream seeking legislation to potentially allow it to end Thoroughbred racing became a red-alert threat on the national level.

On the day that 2025 bill came up for its first hearing, Tampa management lobbied for an amendment that got that track added to the legislation.

This past spring, three decoupling-related bills ended up being active, but none got passed into law to remove the live racing stipulations for Gulfstream and Tampa to operate their respective casino and card room.

Additionally, Gov. Ron DeSantis told horsemen this past spring that he would be against decoupling at Gulfstream and Tampa if such legislation cleared both chambers of the legislature, although he stopped short of actually saying he would veto it.

“You can count on me as one that is not going to look favorably on legislation that is going to decimate any of our signature industries,” DeSantis told horsemen during a surprise Apr. 17 visit to the OBS 2-Year-Olds In Training Sale.

Yet DeSantis was the governor responsible for signing the 2021 legislation that decoupled every other form of pari-mutuel betting from gaming in Florida, which is part of the reason why Gulfstream and Tampa continue to seek the same decoupling permissions that the Standardbred, greyhound and jai alai licensees got.

Powell, who in his position with the FTBOA has spearheaded efforts over the past decade and a half to keep Thoroughbred decoupling from becoming a reality, gave TDN his take on the just-introduced bill.

“We've known all along the way that there was an expectation that something like [the 2025 decoupling efforts] could definitely be dropped [for the 2026] session in the House, and we were prepared for that, to double down on that. Now we know for sure what's going to be in the bill. It's got multi tentacles to it. These bills can get amended. They can get withdrawn, as we've seen. They can have anything else happen to them. But we certainly didn't rule out something like that [bill] appearing in the House.

“Also, looking at the landscape, none of the key players have changed from one session to the next. It's kind of a mirror-image session. We would work hard to dissipate the same type of results before it's all said and done, and we still have to look at it a little more closely.

“There are so many nuances in Florida law and regulation that I can't give out a whole evaluation on it. But in terms of the overall theme of a decoupling bill, we're ready for it. And one thing about the horse side of it is we're all jelled on it not being a good thing,” Powell said.

Asked what stood out as new to him in this bill, Powell said that, “It looks like it could have some impact on what is a 'permit' and what is not a 'permit.' Also, just in general, the amount of notice that a racetrack needs to give to decouple, on initial review, seems extremely, frighteningly short, which would prevent anybody from really meaningfully getting ready for a transition.

“Again, it needs more review. Just on cursory review, I'm sure it's going to have some quirks in it that just generally aren't good for the Thoroughbred industry. But nor was last year's version,” Powell said.

Asked about the new language involving a racing license transfer to a training facility, Powell said he doesn't see at first reading how that could be beneficial to Thoroughbred interests.

“If you think about it, whatever training center that would be, it would be a training center without any revenue for purses,” Powell said. “Because if you wanted to get gaming, you would have to go to the vote of the people, because the no-casinos law, you can't just get rid of laws of the people from a ballot initiative. I can't visualize how that plays as we now speak.

“So if it was something like the Palm Meadows facility, you have all of the local constraints, including a long-term agreement that was signed that it wouldn't be a [pari-mutuel] track when it was established,” Powell said. “I don't see the easy links there, but again, I'd have to study it.”

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