Gambling Watchdog Summarizes Contents of Massive Expansion Bill

From Illinois Churches in Action:

Gambling Alert – June 1, 2019

Casinos

CasiNO button frm the 1990’s.
  • A casino for Chicago with 4,000 gambling positions that is privately owned, with the revenue split equally between the City, State, and owner
  • Slot machines at O’Hare and Midway Airports, using some of Chicago’s 4,000 positions
  • Expands number of gambling positions at all other casino from 1,200 to 2,000
  • Additional casinos for Waukegan, Danville, Rockford, South suburbs of Chicago, Walker’s Bluff Winery
  • 3 Racetracks become casinos, with gambling machines, table games, and sports gambling – Exemption to Home Rule
  • New racetrack casino for Cook County (Palatine) owned by video gambling company
  • 24 hour gambling at ALL casinos-people could gamble 72 hours or more non-stop
  • All casinos can be land-based
  • Allows existing casinos to relocate on land with an application fee of $250,000
  • Tax breaks for construction and comps-20% of revenue used for vouchers, coupons, and incentives for gamblers will not be taxed, meaning less revenue for the State.  A separate and lower tax on table games-15% to20%
Not only are casinos with slot machines in most South Dakota restaurants, they are also in the gas stations.

Video Gambling

  • Increases the bet amount to $1, and DOUBLES the maximum bet to $4 per bet (One gambler lost $800 in One Hour placing bets at the $2 maximum rate)
  • Increases the jackpot from $500 to $1,199 and allows establishments to have progressive jackpots of $10,000
  • Increases the number of machines at establishments to 6
  • DOUBLES the number of machines at truck stops to 10 and increases the amount of diesel fuel sold each month from 10,000 gallons to 50,000

Sports Gambling

  • Bets may be placed at casinos, racetracks, sports stadiums and within a 5 block area of the stadiums, Lottery terminals at 50,000 retailer outlets (gas stations/convenience stores)
  • Bets can be placed on sports events or portions of sports events, on individual performance statistics for athletes in a sports event or combination of sports events, by any system of wagering, including, but not limited to: in person or over the internet through websites and on mobile devices Sports wagering includes single-game bets, in-play bets, in-game wagering, position bets, straight bets, etc.

Young people will place bets several times a day on their cell phones and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In the UK there are 2 suicides a day from 25-35 year old men who have lost everything gambling online.

A sports gambling college student in Massachusetts was charged with threatening to kill players when he lost bets and felt they weren’t playing hard enough.

He faces 10 years in federal prison. Underage youth could use accounts set up by parents, relatives and friends and gamble on mobile devices.

Making gambling more accessible in homes, mobile device, additional casinos, and neighborhood casinos will increase addiction, bankruptcy, crime, family stress and health, child neglect and abuse, suicide.

The costs are as high as $7 for every $1 of revenue for the State.

Gambling is an unstable source of revenue that has not and cannot pay for building construction projects.


Comments

Gambling Watchdog Summarizes Contents of Massive Expansion Bill — 7 Comments

  1. Can Churche, High Schools, Hospitals, old folk’s homes and townships apply for a slots license, too?

    Why not corrupt everybody?

    Oh, I forgot, Townships are already quite corrupt.

    Just look at MCHenry Township, Nunda Township, GRAFTon Township and, of course, Algonquin Township.

  2. Disgusting.

    But, hey, that’s Illinois. One Gigantic Cesspool.

  3. You passed a cannabis bill!???

    And you’re concerned about an EXPANSION of gambling??

    Seriously?

    So time to switch political parties.

    Ugh!

  4. Churches in Action?

    Average bingo session tops $80-100 a person!

    Not many people gamble that much in ONE sitting!

    But you justify it because it’s going to the “church”.

    Hypocrites!

  5. Gambling,pot, cigarettes- all taxes on the willing (and none too bright).

    Jack ’em up guys!

    We got bills to pay!

  6. Any comment on doubling the gas tax?

    Doesn’t seem to qualify as a progressive tax.

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