In May 2009, then-Governor Pat Quinn signed the Illinois Jobs Now! bill, opening the door for video gambling in Illinois. The Illinois House passed the measure 86-30. The first video gambling machines went into bars, restaurants, truck stops, internet cafes and fraternal and veterans organizations in 2012. Today Illinois offers more locations to gamble and more machines to play than Nevada and any other state.
Specifically, Illinois has 30,384 machines in 6,834 locations compared to Nevada with 18,996 machines in 1,984 locations. Besides Illinois, only seven other states have legalized video gambling outside casinos: Oregon, South Dakota, West Virginia, Louisiana, Montana, Pennsylvania and Nevada. The machines are not legal in Chicago.
According to the Illinois Gaming Control Board, players lost nearly $1.5 billion in 2018 at video gambling terminals statewide. The losses became revenue for the state, local municipalities, establishment owners and machine owners. The state report said, “At the end of 2018, terminals were averaging $140 per machine per day in revenue player losses compared to $131 in 2017, an increase of 6.4 percent.”
