Billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin opposes Florida expenditures that could enable a casino to open up at Jeff Soffer’s Fontainebleau Miami Beach vacation resort.
In a Miami Herald letter to the editor titled “Casinos are a lousy guess for Florida,” Griffin cautioned that gambling growth would threaten “our shared prosperity” in the condition, writing that “measurable analysis proves” that casinos lead to gambling addiction, larger criminal offense prices and drops in assets values.
Griffin, a key Republican party donor and South Florida genuine estate trader, took purpose at Senate Invoice 1054 and Property Bill 1127. The legislation would let gambling permit holders to transfer their licenses to a residence inside of 30 miles.
Soffer has been striving in the latest years to get point out approval to transfer his gambling license from the Large Uncomplicated Casino at 831 North Federal Highway in Hallandale Seaside to his Fontainebleau Miami Seashore resort at 4441 Collins Avenue.
He owns both of those attributes by his Aventura-based Fontainebleau Growth. So much, Soffer has been dealt a shedding hand but this yr he upped the ante. In current months, Soffer pumped $300,000 in contributions to the Republican Celebration of Florida and political motion committees supporting point out lawmakers, the Herald documented. This features $15,000 for Principled Ethical Conservatism, a PAC chaired by Alex Rizo, a point out representative who is sponsoring the Home monthly bill.
Griffin’s letter will make no point out of Soffer, Fontainebleau resort and Miami Beach front but opines on the harmful outcomes of gambling as a total on the “thriving condition.” He does stage out that the expenditures are counter to a 2018 constitutional modification accepted by voters that vests them the right to approve casino enlargement.
“It’s a legislative gimmick created by lobbyists and particular interest groups that blatantly disregards our voice as voters and places Florida’s momentum at possibility,” Griffin wrote in the letter.
Miami Seashore metropolis officials and inhabitants also oppose a casino, with voters approving a evaluate in 2017 that banned gambling in the town.
Griffin was element of a cohort of uber-rich out-of-staters who rushed to South Florida, scooping up mansions and investing in professional attributes, in the increase years that ensued immediately after 2020. The in-migration was owing to Florida’s absence of income tax and early pandemic reopening, as properly as Miami’s company-friendly climate.
In 2022, Griffin moved his Citadel and Citadel Securities’ headquarters from Chicago to Miami. The companies leased temporary offices, although Griffin is expected to have a headquarters tower developed at 1201 Brickell Bay Generate website in Brickell. Griffin paid a record $363 million for the web-site in 2022. Also that 12 months, he paid out a history $106.7 million for Adrienne Arsht’s estate at 3031 and 3115 Brickell Avenue in Coconut Grove.
In his letter, he went on to equate allowing casinos and their prospective adverse impacts to “willingly dumping harmful squander into the Everglades.”
–– Lidia Dinkova
