An advertising campaign team financed by Marc Roberts, who along with Art Falcone is developing the 25-acre Miami World Center, has already spent more than $850,000, hired 13 petition gathering companies and has lawyers working to write an initiative for possible placement on the 2010 ballot,.

A major selling point: taxes on the new casinos would go to benefit all Florida schools, just like the successful slots initiative before it.

According to early drafts of the petition, the group is mulling three amendments, two of which are designed to appeal to the existing pari-mutuel companies in Miami-Dade and Broward by asking voters to give them the same games as the Seminole Tribe and lower their tax rate.

The latest draft of the proposed casino amendment allows for Class III gambling , including craps, keno, roulette, blackjack and slot machines, to be played at any of these sites: existing pari-mutuels in Miami Dade or Broward, a Miami location that is ”bounded by Northeast 11th Street, Biscayne Boulevard, Northeast Sixth Street and North Miami Avenue,” and at a hotel in Miami Beach that has ”over 800 lodging rooms.”

The Fontainebleau Hotel, with roughly 1,200 rooms, is the only Miami Beach hotel that would qualify, according to experts.
To become state law, the amendments will have to be approved by 60 percent of Florida voters statewide, and the tax-related amendment would need 66 percent approval.
Michael Caputo, spokesman for Roberts’ group, the Committee for Critical Challenges, said that his group is looking into the feasibility of offering casino games as well as other ambitious projects, such as an aquarium or an international trading center for energy credits at Miami World center.

”We’ve got plenty of money to do what needs to be done and we are clearly armed for the battle,” said Caputo. “If we did not look at gaming in downtown Miami we would be remiss.”

The campaign will put a casino in the middle of Miami World Center, a mixed-use development proposed for nine blocks in downtown’s Park West neighborhood. The project is to include hotels, shops, restaurants and entertainment components — and eventually, offices and residences.

City bureaucrats are mulling a zoning change for the development and an agreement that would cement the changes for the next 20 years.

The campaign to push for a casino has been kept secret. Managing director, Nitin Motwani said he believes the project will go forward as planned.

”The project has a direction, which does not include gaming,” said Motwani. “We welcome the exploratory committee’s suggestions and anyone’s suggestions to make a better project.”

Caputo, who has been paid $66,000 by the committee, said the development group and the political committee have been working on separate tracks, even though they are both financed by the same source.
He said the committee hired former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre in July to look at how to develop more jobs for Miami. Ferre has been paid $50,000 and would not comment.