Illinois would go forward with casino licenses
The State would review the frozen budget that includes gaming expansion.
US.- Gaming expansion would be debated in Illinois in February. As the Senate has frozen the approval of the 2017 budget that includes casino licensing process earlier this month, legislators have seemingly agreed on carrying out the debate on the first weeks of February.
The casino proposal, which includes 10 bills, intends to approve further casino projects across Illinois. Rockford, Danville cities, Lake County and Orland Park, Oak Lawn and Chicago Heights are the possible locations where authorities would grant casino licenses. The bill would also accept slot machines operations on State’s horseracing tracks.
“Each bill has a poison pill in it. So if one doesn’t pass, none of them do. The reason for that is that there are things in these bills that everybody hates and things everybody likes. You’re not going to get Democrats to support worker compensation reforms on their own and you’re not going to get Republicans to support a tax hike on its own but if you put all of these things together, the hope is that you force a vote on all of it and we can move forward,” explained Illinois Republican Senator Dave Syverson, who co-sponsored the project along with Senator Terry Link.
The new Illinois gaming framework would demand Rockford gaming establishment’s 5 percent of any revenues to be invested among local area communities; although the host city would keep 70 percent of the amount. Winnebago County would receive 20 percent of the total revenue, whilst Machesney Park and Loves Park communities would split equally the rest.
