Casino revenue in Illinois last year was down 1.5% from 2018—and 17% from 2012, the seventh consecutive year of declines. Despite this empirical evidence, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and his commissars for 
optimism remain hellbent on casino expansion, believing that there is more money to be made. It’s no mystery why casino revenue started nosing down in 2012; that’s the year the state started offering slot routes, sapping casinos (just ask Boyd Gaming). Taxed at 34%, the casinos forked over $455 million to Pritzker, who is “chasing losses” like a degenerate gambler. Casino-tax receipts have fallen 21% in nine years and can’t get back up. Some of that—$503 million—was made up by slot routes, whose 33,000 machines took in $1.7 billion … more than was made by all the state’s casinos combined.
Illogically, Pritzker argues that the strength of the slot routes bodes well for new casinos, despite the public’s obvious preference for bar-top gambling. Despite acknowledging that “a major contributing factor to this falloff is the increased competition resulting from the growth of video gaming,” Pritzker continues to push for a casino in Chicago, to 
which the industry has given the cold shoulder. Why not just legalize Windy City slot routes? You’d probably make as much money, if not more. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) still hopes to convince the Lege to ease the confiscatory 72% tax rate on the projected casino but has had little success to date.
In a related sideshow, former Assistant Majority Leader Luis Arroyo (D) was caught on tape trying to bribe a state senator to help legalize ‘sweepstakes’ machines. Trying to be clever, Arroyo said, “this is the jackpot.” Now a lobbyist, Arroyo was one of three gambling-expansion backers who have since been charged with crimes. His alleged bribe-ee—and unnamed federal witness—was state Sen. Terry Link (D, pictured), who denies it.
* Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey‘s not about to commit to gambling in her state without assurances of how much revenue it will actually bring. Which is good. How often have we seen states burned by over-optimistic revenue projections? At stake is a compact with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians that would include establishment of a lottery. In the meantime, House Ways & Means General Fund Chairman Steve Clouse (R) is ramping up the pressure to get the compact passed and onto the November election ballot, when voter turnout is expected to be high. Ivey also defended her decision to privatize prisons after the Lege failed to come up with the money. Maybe gambling revenues will her give her the money to take prisons public again.
Jottings: Penn National Gaming is clamming up about that massive norovirus outbreak at L’Auberge Lake Charles, according to Fox News. Penn is hardly taking the most helpful attitude … You thought that riverboat-casino plot on Ozark was just fiction, didn’t you? Well, Missouri lawmakers are looking at adding the Osage River to the list of Show-Me State waterways on which gambling is permitted, opening the door to an unspecified number of new casinos. “If done correctly, it could be an economic driver” for the Lake of the Ozarks, said state Rep. Rocky Miller (R).
Since the 72% gambling tax on the city is a joke and zero casino companies have no interest in getting fleeced by a bunch of corrupt politicians (Mike Madigan leads the way) slot routes in the city of Chicago might be the way to go.
In January there was $39.2 million dollars in marijuana sales in Illinois which is a good start for the first month of marijuana legalization. No information on state tax revenue has yet been released. The first round of tax payments from dispensaries are not due until the end of February, and tax rates vary depending on classes of product sold.