Nearly one month after signing an expansive gaming bill, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker named Springfield attorney Charles Schmadeke as chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board and Boeing Senior Counsel Anthony Garcia as the fifth board member. The state Senate must confirm both appointments.
The board is scheduled to meet Thursday, August 8 for the first time since Pritzker signed expanded gaming legislation. The panel must select operators for six new casinos, slots and table games at the state’s three horseracing tracks and a new south suburban racino, and oversee more video gambling machines and sports betting.
Schmadeke is the partner-in-charge at the Springfield office of law firm Hinshaw & Culbertson. He was general counsel in then-Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes’ office until 2002; currently Hynes is one of Pritzker’s four deputy governors. Schmadeke also was chief of the general law bureau in the Illinois attorney general’s office.
This year, Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan’s main campaign fund paid Hinshaw & Culbertson more than $297,000 in legal fees, according to state campaign finance records.
The appointment drew praise from many quarters.
”You’ve gotta be smart, you’ve gotta be tough, you’ve gotta be ethical,” former Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan told the Chicago Sun Times. “And he’s all those things. He’s an excellent lawyer, a rock-solid professional.”
At Boeing, Garcia oversees internal investigations involving alleged violations of anti-corruption laws. He also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago and an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Currently the gaming board licenses, taxes and regulates the state’s 10 casinos and 32,000-plus video gambling machines in 7,000 establishments. Under state law, at least one member must have law enforcement and criminal investigation experience; one must be a licensed attorney in Illinois; and one must be a certified public accountant. The three sitting members, all from Cook County, meet those requirements: Chicago Police Sergeant Ruben Ramirez Jr.; CNA Insurance Corporate Attorney Dionne Hayden; and Northbrook accountant Steve Dolins.
The only other requirements for potential board members are “a reasonable knowledge of the practice, procedure and principles of gambling operations,” no criminal record and no financial interest in any gaming operations.
Retired Cook County Judge Aaron Jaffe, who was chairman of the board from 2005 to 2015, said, “It’s not an attractive job. Not at all, especially for the chairman. Take a look at how much money the board brings in, about $466 million in taxes last year, and say if you were a corporation, what would you be paying the board? Here, you get paid for two meetings a month” at $300 per day.
Another former board chairman, Don Tracy, whose term expired July 1, said, “I found it very challenging, particularly for someone with a full-time job.” In addition to his private law practice, Tracy said he probably spent up to 400 hours annually on gaming board business, including making several trips a month from Springfield to Chicago for regular staff meetings.
Jaffe said when he was chairman, the board had 200 workers. That number rose to 235 by the end of last year, including 78 Illinois State Police troopers, seven technology department workers and 150 directly employed by the gaming board. “I always said we needed to double our staff. We never got it. And that was before video gaming took off. Never, ever has the gaming board had adequate staffing. We are talking about extensive investigations. There’s always opportunity for the criminal element to creep in someplace,” Jaffe said.
Tracy said despite being “severely understaffed,” the board’s legal department was able to conduct investigations and background checks. “But proactive raids, random spot checks , that’s where we were probably understaffed,” Tracy says.
Pritzker’s state budget includes an $8 million funding increase to $162 million, allowing 35 new employees.
