Illinois state Rep. Bob Rita recently presented two expanded gambling proposals to the General Assembly. One amendment would create a Chicago casino with up to 10,000 gaming positions—but the four new casinos proposed in earlier measures would not be included. The second plan would create a 4,000-spot Chicago casino and smaller casinos with 1,200 positions in Rockford, Danville, Lake County and a south Chicago suburb.
Under Rita’s plan, the state—not the city, as previously suggested–would own and regulate the Chicago casino. Also under Chicago-only casino proposal, no slot machines would be allowed at horseracing tracks as earlier plans suggested, nor at Chicago’s two airports.
The five-casinos plan would allow 600 slot machines at each horse track in Cook County and 450 per track outside the county, except for Fairmount Park.
Neither proposal would allow the state’s 10 existing casinos to expand. Previous measures called for 1,600 spots for the new casinos and 1,600 positions instead of 1,200 in existing riverboats.
Said Rita, “We’ve got to take a different approach and of all the concerns that I’ve heard, filing these two amendments will be the way to free up this logjam that we’re in and take a different approach, scale this proposal down while concentrating on creating jobs and putting money into schools. It’s two different approaches that I’d like to see which direction they’d like to go, the will of the General Assembly.”
State Senator Terry Link said he was encouraged by actions in the House and “their willingness to get this moving again.”
Meanwhile, an Illinois Senate committee recently unanimously passed a measure that would create a list of people, named by the Illinois Gaming Board, who would be excluded from involvement with video gambling. Illinois’ Riverboat Gambling Act allows the gaming board to exclude people from casinos, but the state’s Video Gaming Act currently does not have that authority.
Under the legislation, sponsored by state Senator Ira Silverstein, the gaming board would be allowed to place an individual on the video gambling exclusion list if the board or a court finds that person has a criminal background or is associated organized crime.
Opponents of the measure said such a list could interfere with due process.
And in Elmwood Park Village Board, the board recently voted to allow video gambling in restaurants. Each establishment will pay a $1,000 license fee and $1,000 per-machine fee, and the village will receive 5 percent of net gaming revenues. Village Manager Paul Volpe said, “We’ll probably put the money into infrastructure improvements in the village.”
