This article originally appeared in Sportshandle.
It’s information overload everywhere, and there’s not time enough to sleep and eat and stay fully apprised of what’s happening on this crazy blue dot of ours (two out of three ain’t bad). Here’s the weekend Sports Handle item, “Get a Grip,” recapping the week’s top U.S. sports betting stories, highlighting some fresh news, and rounding up key stories. Also check out this week’s Wild World of Gambling at US Bets.
DraftKings and FanDuel are Florida’s ‘champions’
It won’t be an easy lift, but the contest has officially started: DraftKings and FanDuel will be racing to collect nearly a million signatures in order to secure a ballot initiative that would break open the Florida mobile sports betting marketplace that, as currently and tentatively constituted, would be a Seminole Tribe monopoly.
As first reported by Sports Handle on Wednesday and further buttressed by a review of the draft copy of the initiative on Thursday, the Florida Secretary of State website has now published the proposed constitutional amendment, which bears the Serial Number 21-13.
Financially and strategically backed by DraftKings and FanDuel, the political action committee Florida Education Champions will serve as the vessel for the initiative.
The PAC was registered on June 2 and is chaired by David Johnson, a Republican political consultant. Johnson’s wife Christina, president of On 3 Public Relations, is serving as the group’s spokesperson.
“Yes, those entities [DraftKings and FanDuel] are going to be supportive of this effort,” said Christina Johnson, acknowledging that they are driving the campaign to amend the state Constitution.
Further in a statement published by the Florida Phoenix, she added, “The Florida Education Champions committee is comprised of like-minded individuals invested in increasing public education funding, without raising taxes, in Florida, by expanding sports betting in the state. The committee will be actively fundraising, targeting donors who support our mission to get this pro-education ballot amendment before the voters in November 2022.”