Florida Decoupling Bill Passes Second Committee, Clearing Way For Vote On Full House Floor

[Wandering Eyes]

The Commerce Committee in the Florida House of Representatives reported favorably Feb. 3 on the controversial decoupling bill backed by Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs that would allow either track to cease live racing while retaining their respective casino and card-room privileges.

The vote appeared to be 15-9. The decision was largely split along party lines, with the “no” votes cast by Democrats and only two Republicans splitting off from the “yes” votes to oppose the bill. (One voice vote was inaudible during the roll call; the Florida legislature's web page for the bill had not posted the official tally prior to deadline for this story.)

Tuesday's thumbs-up on decoupling by the Commerce Committee joins a 10-5 favorable vote passed by the House Industries & Professional Activities Subcommittee Jan. 14.

With both of both of HB 881's assigned committees now reporting favorably, the bill can be scheduled for floor consideration and a vote by the full House membership.

A nearly identical companion bill has been filed in the Florida Senate. It has been referred to three committees, but has yet to be scheduled for any debate in that chamber.

Decoupling, which means separating legal requirements to host pari-mutuel racing from gaming privileges, is hardly new to Florida.

In 2025, a similar version of decoupling ended up getting passed in the House but not the Senate.

Testifying before the committee on Tuesday, Lonny Powell, the chief executive officer of the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association (FTBOA), estimated that he has appeared before the Florida legislature in 12 of the last 14 years in an effort to keep decoupling from happening.

Since 2021, all other forms of pari-mutuel gaming in Florida (greyhound and Standardbred racing, plus jai alai) have ben decoupled. Thoroughbred racing remains the lone exception.

This latest version attempts to provide a “runway” in terms of timing that would require Gulfstream and Tampa to give notice of racing suspension as of July 1, 2027, with racing required to continue for at least three years after that notice of intent got filed.

Presumably, according to the bill's Republican sponsor, Rep. Adam Anderson, that would be enough time for Thoroughbred owners, breeders and other industry stakeholders to legalize and build a new racetrack somewhere else in the state and come up with a way to fund its purses and operation.

Six members of the public-all related to various ownership, breeding and auction organizations based in Florida-testified against the decoupling bill on Tuesday.

No members of the public testified in favor of decoupling.

Three representatives spoke against it, with two testifying in favor, including Anderson, the sponsor.

Powell's comments about the potential adverse impacts of decoupling were blunt. But he also tried to get the politicians to realize that the FTBOA and other stakeholders have a Plan B in the pipeline.

“There is nothing in this bill that's really good for the horsepeople. There's nothing that gives us confidence. There's nothing that gives us hope. The horsemen and the horsewomen, the breeders and the owners and farms, with decoupling, face the ultimate devastation of their industry,” Powell said.

“But I do want to come here with, once again, a solution, because we heard you last year. We've got to figure out a way to make this issue just move on, and we've got to get our breeders back where they have some confidence in breeding these championship Florida horses,” Powell said.

“We do have the only existing permit allowed by law [for a track to be] located in Marion County [that the FTBOA secured in 2011] for this very purpose, in case the racetracks rolled back their racing dates,” Powell said.

Back in December, when speaking at the Global Symposium on Racing hosted by the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program, Powell had unveiled a plan to enter into a “mutually exclusive, multi-year agreement” with “a Delaware registered entity” to try and bring a new racetrack in or near Ocala to fruition.

Two months ago, Powell identified that group's two principals as Philip Levine, who served as mayor of Miami Beach from 2013 to 2017, and John Morgan, a billionaire attorney based in Florida who is best known as the founder of the personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan and who has active involvement in various Thoroughbred partnerships.

“What the challenge is, right now, the way this is designed, is the tracks get to exit [the racing industry] for free, not paying any tab,” Powell told the committee Tuesday. “In fact, they shut off all the revenue to everybody. [So] we now have to assume the economics of the horse side and the track side to get this done…

“And I am quite confident that we'll be before you next session with a proposed solution that could very well make winners of everybody around the table. That's one of the best ways to get things done, and that's what we're working on,” Powell said.

Rep. Christine Hunschofsky, the committee's Democratic ranking member, said she has two “massive issues” with greenlighting decoupling.

One has to do with potentially putting horse people out of their livelihoods at a time when many Floridians already have hardships related to affordability.

The second relates to overstepping the local wishes of Broward County voters, 57% of whom she said back in 2005 approved gaming at Gulfstream only because it was a licensed facility that already took horse bets.

“Thoroughbred racing is an important part of our economy,” Hunschofsky said. “And I find it very difficult to reconcile when we're in the Commerce Committee, and we're here to support small businesses, [and when] we're having people struggling with the economy right now, struggling to find work, [we] have legislation in front of us now that will literally decimate an industry, an industry that's part of the history here in Florida.”

As for the local control, Hunschofsky put it this way: “So now, the state wants to come in and say, 'Okay Broward, you made a decision based on [allowing gaming at a racetrack].' And now we're going to change the rules of the game, and we're not going to go back to the residents of Broward and say, 'Hey, do you still want to have gambling [at Gulfstream] if they take away the Thoroughbred racing?'”

As is customary, the bill's sponsor, Anderson, was allowed the last word before the legislation  came up for a committee vote.

Just like he has at previous hearings, Anderson-in what must have seemed like a mind-boggling paradox to Thoroughbred stakeholders-portrayed himself as a proponent of Florida's breeding and racing industries.

After thanking the committee's legislators for offering up only “light questions” related to his bill, Anderson said that he was “especially encouraged by some of the testimony about the industry starting to work on actionable solutions, and that's what we want to see happen.

“I think all of you in front of me here know that I'm committed to this industry, committed to the racing community,” Anderson said. “I'm a lover of the animal. I'm a lover of the race. I've been involved in the racing industry for the better part of a decade. I want to see it thrive. But I want to see it thrive independently. Because we value free-market principles.”

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