Crain's Chicago Business

June 28, 2010

By Paul Merrion

 

It looks like a safe bet that video gambling in Illinois won't come close to producing the nearly $300 million in new revenue expected in the coming fiscal year, putting a big crimp in the state's five-year, $31-billion plan to create about a half-million jobs building highways, schools and other long-term infrastructure projects.

While the number of communities opting out of last year's law allowing video poker machines in Illinois has slowed to a trickle, logistical problems and continuing controversies over licensing and other legal issues are likely to keep the new machines from operating anywhere in the state until fiscal 2011 is almost over."

 

I hope we'd do it sometime late this year — I would hope it will be operational by that time," Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Aaron Jaffe says, a prediction he's been making since December. "But there are so many variables, it's mind-boggling."

 

What really boggles the mind is that video gambling could reap far more than official estimates, once tens of thousands of machines are up and running, if other states are any guide. Illinois assumes each machine will pull in $70 to $90 a day (the amount left after gamblers' winnings are subtracted), with 25% going to the state, 5% to the local government and the rest split between the bar owner and the operator, who owns and installs the machines.