Can Illinois keep a Chicago casino free of corruption? Yes, if the politicians butt out.
In the 30 years since Illinois legalized casino gambling, state lawmakers and Chicago mayors hungry for revenue have had no good answer for this question: Why doesn’t the biggest city between America’s seacoasts have a casino to efficiently separate gamblers from their money?
With the prospect of a Chicago casino now brighter than ever, a different question looms: Will a City Hall and statehouse culture renowned for enabling rampant greed and astonishing corruption blow this golden opportunity for fresh revenue?
As longtime advocates for a Chicago casino, we hope the answer to that suspicion is no. We want the unfolding project to succeed as an employer, a tourism draw and a prolific producer of tax dollars. But the cheesy history of Illinois and City Hall politicians trying to cut ethical corners and otherwise exploit creation of a Chicago casino demands that today’s pols heed three rules:
■ Don’t try to game this project for crony contracts, campaign contributions and jobs for your in-laws.
■ Accept that the Illinois Gaming Board — not City Hall or the General Assembly — will regulate every facet of this enterprise.
■ In short, keep your hands off this casino project so it can deliver for the people of Chicago and Illinois.
Insulating legalized gambling from scandal
We’ve always taken a hard line on protecting legalized gambling from corruption. One reason among many:
Word of a crime scandal at any Illinois casino would instantly drive away gamblers, devastate the gaming industry statewide, and choke off a revenue stream that delivers hundreds of millions of dollars a year to state and local governments. Then-Gov. Pat Quinn crisply echoed that concern in 2012 when he vetoed a terrible gambling expansion bill that included intentionally sloppy oversight of a Chicago casino project: “We’re not going to have loopholes for mobsters in Illinois . ... My two predecessors, who are in jail, did not focus on ethics.”
The politics of three decades ago dictated that when Illinois’ first 10 licenses were allocated, one went to East Dubuque (1990 population: 2,016) but none came to Chicago (2.7 million). Subsequent efforts to place a casino in Chicago regularly flopped in Springfield: Lawmakers either couldn’t agree on how ambitiously to expand Illinois gambling — or they did agree on bills containing such slovenly ethics provisions that a governor’s veto was inevitable.
How slovenly?
Well, one Springfield bill that included a casino for Chicago tried to gut state oversight of gambling by immediately firing the five-member Illinois Gaming Board.
Another proposal would have forbidden suspension or revocation of a Chicago casino’s license — even if organized crime got a foothold in the gambling. Some legislation would have given City Hall a role in regulating a casino owned by, yes, City Hall. The sleaziest provision would have outlawed the presence at a Chicago casino of the Illinois State Police, who help Gaming Board agents regulate the state’s other casinos.
Who wanted to outlaw the Illinois State Police? We’ve never been able to find the culprit.
Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel wanted a Chicago Casino Development Authority — five members chosen, of course, by the mayor — that would have a say over contracts, including the choice of a casino operator and the selection of temporary and permanent sites. We fought Emanuel on that. We argued that sketchy operators would make campaign donations and otherwise insinuate themselves into the authority’s decisions: Imagine the potential political and criminal pressure on City Hall for patronage hiring, insider contracts and favors for hustlers with clout.
We mention this dark history to highlight how vulnerable cash-rich casinos can be to the ambitions of crooks, politicians and their pals.
Let the Gaming Board do its job
The people of Illinois do, though, have reason to hope that Illinois regulators can keep the anticipated casino clean. Here’s why.
At the urging of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, state lawmakers in 2019 included this Chicago casino in a statewide gambling expansion bill. But that law included unique and onerous tax gouges that could make the Chicago casino a rarity: a gambling den in which the house loses money. A trailer bill passed this spring and signed a few days ago by Gov. J.B. Pritzker includes a new finance scheme that should help the project attract a top-flight company as the casino’s builder-operator.
Legislators shaken by video of FBI agents hauling boxes out of City Hall weren’t wild about that same, often corrupt City Hall owning a casino. So legislators crafted this to be a private-sector casino in Chicago rather than a Chicago-owned casino. Beyond the positive ethics implications, that arrangement should spare taxpayers untold millions of dollars in startup costs.
What’s more, the Gaming Board unarguably will, as it should, have regulatory oversight. We’re hard-pressed to think of another agency in this state’s dysfunctional governance that has so successfully resisted political pressure and threats of criminal influence. Four times Gaming Board regulators have discovered and eliminated wrongdoing or inappropriate associations at casinos; each time the board kept these attempts at criminal influence on casino construction or operation from embarrassing Illinois and sabotaging its gambling industry. One of those cases led to a $3.2 million fine.
We expect that the mayor, as a former federal prosecutor, appreciates the dangers of letting politics dictate where a casino should be sited: City Hall should base its proposal on which location would produce the most tax revenue and jobs. Those factors also should shape City Hall’s proposed choice of a nationally respected company to build and operate the business.
City Hall can make those suggestions, and will play roles in such areas as building inspections and minority setasides. And a nine-member advisory committee appointed by the governor and the mayor will have opportunities to, well, advise.
But the state Gaming Board will have the final say on all decisions, just as it does at every other Illinois casino. The board’s enormous responsibilities involve more than approving such major decisions as a casino’s location and its private sector operator. Examples: Gaming Board regulators conduct background checks on all casino employees and monitor each casino’s vendors, contractors and incidents of worker discipline.
Gamblers and Chicago taxpayers should be relieved that City Hall won’t be regulating a City Hall-owned casino. But none of us should underestimate the risk that some of this state’s, this city’s, political players and their cronies will try to exploit a costly project predicated on huge sums of gambling money changing hands.
A word to the mayor and governor
A final note to Mayor Lightfoot, Gov. Pritzker and leaders of the General Assembly:
You preside over governments stained and compromised by ongoing federal investigations of public corruption. Each of you knows that some aldermen and legislators hear the word “casino” and think “fast money we can spend!” rather than “potential for mob influence and other scandals.”
If Illinois had smarter politicians, Chicago long ago would have had a casino delivering revenue to you. This casino, though, won’t produce any such revenue as quickly as you’d like. But in the rush to get it up and running, we ask that you stress to aldermen, legislators and other officials that you won’t let this project be an inroad for public corruption or organized crime.
Realize too that the big expansion of legalized gambling Illinois lawmakers have authorized will have to be matched by an expansion of Gaming Board resources. That should help assure that gambling remains honest in Illinois — and that a corruption-free Chicago casino reliably generates as much tax revenue as it can.