Florida’s state Supreme Court has ruled that pari-mutuel dog and horseracing operators don’t have the right to launch slot machine operations without state approval.

On Thursday, the state’s highest court unanimously rejected a lawsuit filed by the operators of Gretna Racing, who had claimed that a voter-supported referendum in Gadsden County had cleared the way for the track to add slot machines to its gaming options.

Under existing state law, pari-mutuel slots operations are confined to Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Legislators have attempted multiple times to shake up the state’s gaming market but always failed to reach consensus, with the most recent effort going down to defeat earlier this month, largely due to the House of Representatives balking at Senate plans to authorize slots operations at tracks and jai-alai frontons in eight additional counties.

Justice Charles Canady, who wrote the Court’s 6-0 ruling, states that expanding gaming operations via a referendum requires “statutory or constitutional authorization” and such authorization was “nowhere to be found’ in this case. Canady said “a county cannot initiate a referendum that will authorize the [Florida Division of Pari-mutuel Wagering] to issue a license any more than the county could itself issue a slot machine gaming license.”