{"id":16141,"date":"2015-05-29T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-29T20:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16141"},"modified":"2015-05-29T12:42:15","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T20:42:15","slug":"gaming-on-the-boil-in-pennsylvania-less-so-in-illinois-alabama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/gaming-on-the-boil-in-pennsylvania-less-so-in-illinois-alabama\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaming on the boil in Pennsylvania, less so in Illinois, Alabama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gaming expansion is being introduced in the Illinois<\/strong> Legislature again and it has a pretty familiar look<\/a>: a city-owned casino (the only one) in \"Illinois\"<\/a>Chicago<\/strong>,\u00a0four casinos scattered around the state, including one in Rockford<\/strong>, plus a pair of smaller (600-slot) satellite casinos, one in Decatur<\/strong> and the other potentially as far south as Cairo<\/strong>. Racinos, however, are out of the picture. The Chicago casino would get to keep all its revenue for seven years, as a means of satisfying growing pension obligations<\/a>. However, lawmakers don’t have much time to get this done, since they adjourn on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Luckily for existing operators, some of whom could be driven out of business by such a large expansion (and are already being bled by slot routes), the odds for passage during this session appear pretty long and proponents — mostly Democrats — are going through a rough patch with Gov. Bruce Rauner<\/strong> (R).<\/p>\n

* Gaming legislation sputtered out in Alabama<\/strong>. Since the Legislature \"Del<\/a>couldn’t come up with a viable means of raising revenue, they’ll have to reconvene in a special session to take an axe to the state budget, having already raided the Education Trust Fund<\/strong> to the tune of $100 million. Although it’s a painless means of raising revenue in a tax-averse state, state\u00a0Senate President Pro Tempore Del Marsh<\/strong>‘s casino-and-lottery bill couldn’t get a floor vote<\/a>. Likewise, lawmakers turned a deaf ear to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians<\/strong>‘ offer of $250 million in return for a casino compact.<\/p>\n

* In Pennsylvania<\/strong>, legislators John Payne<\/strong> and Nick Kotick<\/strong> have penned a bipartisan op-ed<\/a> in favor of Internet<\/strong> gambling. Their salient \"Coat_of_arms_of_Pennsylvania.svg\"<\/a>points are that revenues are being lost to lawless Web sites, much as Pennsylvanians once took their casino play to Atlantic City<\/strong>; it’s unregulated and therefore unsafe; and two-thirds of Keystone Staters approve of it as a new tax source. Payne and Kotick cite a new study that puts the dollar size of a legalized online-gaming industry at $120 million year. (Judging by New Jersey<\/strong> figures, that’s doable, provided the offerings are not limited to poker<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Rather more exuberant numbers from the\u00a0Legislative Budget &\u00a0Finance Committee<\/strong> put revenues and taxes at $307 million and $113 million, respectively. “That kind of money would help to offset the projected budget deficit we face and proposals to levy new taxes on working Pennsylvanians,” the lawmakers write, dangling the carrot of reduced property taxes before readers. “Under the legislation, the state Gaming Control Board<\/strong> would establish consumer protections such as allowing customers to set limits on deposits and losses and measures to help problem gamblers,” they add.<\/p>\n

Here’s hoping that such reasoning prevails in the Lege.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaming expansion is being introduced in the Illinois Legislature again and it has a pretty familiar look: a city-owned casino (the only one) in Chicago,\u00a0four casinos scattered around the state, including one in Rockford, plus a pair of smaller (600-slot) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[135,14,58,37,95,33,31,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16141"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16146,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16141\/revisions\/16146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}