BestBet Jacksonville Is Being Sued by the Federal Government for How It Treated Pregnant Employees

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A legal note before we begin: Everything in this article is based on verified, publicly available information — including a federal lawsuit filed by a U.S. government agency, official EEOC press releases, court filings, and published reporting from multiple news outlets. All allegations described are drawn directly from the EEOC's lawsuit and have not yet been proven in court. BestBet Jacksonville is presumed innocent unless and until a court finds otherwise. This article does not assert guilt — it reports on a federal lawsuit that is now a matter of public record and presents the facts as they have been documented.

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Who Is BestBet Jacksonville?

If you have lived in Jacksonville for any amount of time, you know BestBet. It is not a small operation tucked away on a side street. BestBet is the largest poker room in the state of Florida, a distinction it carries across three locations in Northeast Florida.

Its flagship location sits at 201 Monument Rd in Arlington, where more than 80 poker tables run around the clock on weekends. The Orange Park location operates more than 30 tables, and the St. Augustine location runs 49 tables alongside a full sports bar, sushi bar, and simulcast wagering. All three locations feature dining options and host events ranging from casual games to tournaments tied to the World Poker Tour and Card Player Poker Tour.

By any measure, this is a significant regional employer. According to publicly available business data, BestBet employs between 201 and 500 people across its locations and generates estimated annual revenues of approximately $25 million. The company is privately held, and its president is Jamie Shelton.

This is not a startup. This is not a business that can claim it did not know better. BestBet has been operating for years, employs hundreds of people, and carries the resources and legal obligations that come with being an employer of that size. Which makes what the federal government is alleging all the more serious.

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What Happened: The Federal Lawsuit

On March 31, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — the federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace anti-discrimination laws — filed a federal lawsuit against BestBet Jacksonville, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

The case number is 3:26-cv-00704. It has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger.

The EEOC does not file lawsuits lightly. Before reaching federal court, the agency attempted to resolve the matter through its administrative conciliation process — essentially giving BestBet the opportunity to settle and correct the problem without litigation. According to the EEOC, those efforts failed. BestBet did not reach a resolution. So the federal government sued.

The lawsuit alleges that BestBet Jacksonville violated the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) — a federal law signed by President Biden in December 2022 that went into effect June 27, 2023. The core allegation is straightforward: BestBet had a blanket policy that effectively forced pregnant employees out of their jobs rather than providing them with the legally required accommodations.

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The Two Women at the Center of This Case

The lawsuit identifies two specific incidents involving two separate employees in early 2025. Their names have not been made public.

Employee One — January 2025

The first employee was dealing with a high-risk pregnancy. According to the EEOC's lawsuit, she was suffering from two serious medical conditions: a form of low blood pressure that causes dizziness and fainting, and a subchorionic hematoma — a condition involving blood pooling between the placental membranes that, in serious cases, can lead to pregnancy loss.

Her doctor gave her a note. It advised her to take approximately two and a half weeks off from work.

In practical terms, this meant she needed to miss six shifts.

She brought the doctor's note to BestBet and requested the accommodation.

According to the EEOC, BestBet's response was not to engage with her, not to explore alternatives, not to ask questions about what might be possible. Instead, the company pointed to its policy: employees who miss two or more weeks of work and do not qualify for leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) are required to resign.

This woman did not qualify for FMLA leave — likely because she had not yet met the 12-month employment threshold the law requires. So under BestBet's policy, her only option was to quit.

She was forced out of her job while pregnant, with a documented high-risk condition, carrying a doctor's note.

Employee Two — February 2025

The second case occurred the following month. This employee requested leave for the most basic of reasons: to have her baby.

Again, according to the EEOC's lawsuit, BestBet applied the same policy. The employee did not qualify for FMLA leave. The company forced her to leave rather than granting any accommodation.

She lost her job for asking for time off to give birth.

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The Policy at the Heart of It All

Both cases trace back to a single corporate policy that the EEOC describes in the lawsuit as a "blanket policy prohibiting reasonable accommodations."

That policy, as alleged, required employees to resign if they missed two or more weeks of work and did not qualify for FMLA leave. On its face, this might look like a standard attendance policy. In practice, what the EEOC is arguing — and what the lawsuit alleges — is that this policy was applied without any consideration of whether a reasonable accommodation could have kept these employees working. No modified duties. No adjusted scheduling. No temporary role changes. No individualized conversation. Just a policy applied mechanically to two women who happened to be pregnant.

The EEOC argues this is not just bad HR practice. It is a violation of federal law.

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What the Law Actually Requires

To understand why this case matters, you need to understand what the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act actually says — because a lot of employers, and a lot of employees, do not fully know their rights under this relatively new law.

The PWFA was signed into law in December 2022 and took effect on June 27, 2023. It applies to any employer with 15 or more employees — which includes BestBet by a wide margin.

Here is what the law requires, in plain terms:

Employers must provide reasonable accommodations for any known physical or mental limitation related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions — unless doing so would cause the employer an "undue hardship." That last phrase is the exception, not the rule. The burden is on the employer to demonstrate undue hardship.

Employers must engage in an interactive process. This means actually talking to the employee, exploring options, and making a genuine effort to find a workable solution. The law does not allow employers to simply say no and point to a policy.

FMLA is the floor, not the ceiling. This is the part many employers miss. Just because an employee does not qualify for Family and Medical Leave Act protection does not mean the employer's legal obligations end. The PWFA adds a separate, additional layer of protection that exists independently of FMLA eligibility.

Employers cannot require an employee to take leave if another accommodation is available. If a schedule adjustment, a modified duty assignment, or any other workable alternative exists, the employer must explore it before defaulting to forcing someone out on leave — or out the door entirely.

The four accommodations that are almost always required, regardless of circumstances, include: allowing an employee to keep water nearby, providing additional restroom breaks, allowing an employee to sit when their job requires standing, and providing breaks to eat or drink. These are considered so basic that the EEOC has stated they will virtually never constitute an "undue hardship" for any employer.

What the EEOC is alleging in the BestBet case is that none of this happened. No interactive process. No exploration of alternatives. Just a blanket policy — and the door.

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What BestBet Has Said

Very little.

When Jacksonville Today reached out to BestBet for comment, President Jamie Shelton declined, stating he had no comment on the lawsuit.

BestBet also did not respond to multiple requests for comment made by other media outlets before and after the lawsuit was filed.

The company has not issued a public statement. It has not posted anything on its social media channels addressing the lawsuit. Its website and careers page make no mention of it.

That silence is BestBet's legal right. No company is required to litigate its case in the press, and nothing should be read into a "no comment" in terms of guilt or innocence. The case will play out in federal court, where BestBet will have every opportunity to present its defense.

However, when a company of this size — one that publicly markets itself as a community destination and a desirable employer — is sued by the federal government for how it treated two pregnant workers, and its president's only response is "no comment," the Jacksonville community deserves to know that.

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What the EEOC Said

The agency was not quiet.

Evangeline Hawthorne, EEOC Miami District Director, made the agency's position clear in the official press release announcing the lawsuit: "In this case, multiple women requested and were denied reasonable accommodations. The EEOC will not hesitate to litigate cases where employers blatantly ignore federal law."

Kristen Foslid, Regional Attorney for the EEOC's Miami District Office, added: "Federal law makes it unlawful for employers to refuse to make a reasonable accommodation for the known limitations of a pregnant worker, absent undue hardship. Employers must engage in an interactive dialogue with employees to find suitable accommodations, rather than simply denying the requests outright."

These are not carefully hedged bureaucratic statements. The EEOC used the word "blatantly." That is intentional. Federal agencies do not use that language casually.

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This Was Not Just Two People

One of the most significant details buried in the lawsuit is a phrase that goes beyond the two documented incidents.

The EEOC's filing refers to a "class of similarly aggrieved female employees" — meaning the agency's investigation suggests this was not an isolated problem. It was a pattern. There may be more women who were affected by this policy at BestBet who have not been identified by name in the public filing.

This is why the EEOC pursued this as a class action rather than a single-employee case. The "blanket policy" language in the lawsuit is critical — it suggests the problem was not one manager making a bad call, but an institutional policy applied systematically across the company.

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What This Could Cost BestBet

The lawsuit is active and has not yet been resolved. No damages have been awarded. But looking at how similar EEOC cases under the PWFA have settled nationally gives us a reasonable range of what BestBet could be facing if the agency prevails.

In comparable PWFA cases that have already been resolved:

• A hotel and resort paid $100,000 to settle an EEOC lawsuit after firing a pregnant employee who requested leave following a stillbirth.
• A hospitality company paid $150,000 after the EEOC charged it failed to accommodate a pregnant employee and fired her days after a miscarriage.
• A pharmacy and retailer paid $205,000 after a store manager refused a pregnant employee permission to leave for an urgent medical appointment.

Beyond financial damages, EEOC settlements in employment discrimination cases frequently include:

• Back pay for affected employees
• Compensatory damages
• Mandatory company-wide policy revisions
• Required training for managers and supervisors on accommodation law
• Ongoing reporting requirements to the EEOC
• In some cases, court-appointed monitoring of the company's HR practices

For a company that operates three locations, employs several hundred people, and has a brand built on being a community destination, the reputational exposure may be as significant as the financial one.

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What Jacksonville Workers Need to Know

Whether or not you work in the gaming industry, this case is relevant to anyone employed in Jacksonville — and especially to any woman of childbearing age working for an employer who has an attendance policy similar to what BestBet allegedly had.

Here is what you should know about your rights under the PWFA:

Your employer is legally required to work with you to find a reasonable accommodation for any pregnancy-related limitation. That includes high-risk pregnancies, pregnancy-related medical conditions, recovery from childbirth, and related health issues.

You do not have to be eligible for FMLA leave to be protected under the PWFA. These are separate laws with separate requirements. If your employer tells you that you "don't qualify for leave" and leaves it at that, they may not be telling you the full story about your rights.

You do not have to use specific legal language to trigger your protections. You do not need to cite the PWFA by name. Simply communicating that you have a pregnancy-related limitation that requires an accommodation is legally sufficient.

Your employer cannot retaliate against you for requesting an accommodation. Retaliation is separately illegal.

If you believe your rights have been violated, you can file a charge with the EEOC. The agency offers a free charge filing process. You can also contact the Legal Network for Gender Equity at the National Women's Law Center for help connecting with attorneys.

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The Bigger Picture

This case is part of a growing national trend. The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is still relatively new — it only went into full effect in mid-2023 — and the EEOC has been deliberately and publicly aggressive about enforcing it. The BestBet lawsuit is one of a growing number of federal cases designed to establish the law's reach and signal to employers across every industry that the accommodation requirement is real and enforceable.

The legal community has noted that many employers are still operating under the false assumption that FMLA is the extent of their obligations to pregnant workers. The PWFA changes that, and the EEOC is making examples of employers who have not updated their policies to reflect the law.

For Jacksonville specifically, the BestBet case is a signal to every local employer — restaurants, retailers, hospitality businesses, healthcare providers, distribution centers — that blanket leave-or-resign policies that ignore the accommodation conversation are legally vulnerable. The size of the company does not matter. The nature of the business does not matter. If you have 15 or more employees, the PWFA applies to you.

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Our Bottom Line

BestBet Jacksonville is a pillar of the local gaming and entertainment scene. It employs hundreds of Northeast Florida residents and has been part of this community for years. None of that is in dispute, and none of it is the subject of this article.

What is the subject of this article is a federal lawsuit alleging that two pregnant women — one of whom had a documented high-risk condition that her doctor said required rest, and one of whom simply needed time to deliver her baby — were forced to leave their jobs rather than receive the accommodations the law requires.

The EEOC tried to resolve this without a lawsuit. BestBet did not reach a resolution. Now it is in federal court.

BestBet's president has declined to comment. The company has said nothing publicly. The case is proceeding before U.S. District Judge Wendy Berger.

Jacksonville is watching.

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This article is an independent editorial piece based entirely on publicly available, verified information. All allegations described are drawn from the EEOC's official federal lawsuit (Case No. 3:26-cv-00704), official EEOC press releases, and reporting from Jacksonville Today, the Florida Times-Union, Action News Jax, HR Dive, and SHRM. BestBet Jacksonville has not been found liable for any violation. The company is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise in a court of law. Nothing in this article should be construed as a legal determination of guilt.

Information about worker rights is provided for general educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Workers who believe their rights may have been violated should contact the EEOC directly or seek qualified legal counsel.

All paraphrased statements attributed to EEOC officials are drawn from official agency press releases and verified news reporting. No statements have been fabricated or invented.