Bally’s offered Wednesday to move quickly to install lounges filled with slot machines at O’Hare and Midway airports and “substitute” that revenue for the $6.8 million the city was counting on by lifting the ban on video gambling terminals.
Christopher Jewett, senior vice president for corporate development at Bally’s, said each of the four passenger terminals at O’Hare as well as the one at Midway could support one slot machine lounge.
“We believe one lounge can generate approximately $5 million in actual gaming and admission taxes, which go directly to the city,” Jewett told the City Council’s Committee on Workforce Development. “This alone can replace the revenue in question.”
The $16.6 billion 2026 budget approved by a City Council majority lifted the Chicago ban on video gambling and assumed Chicago would generate $6.8 million by licensing newly legalized video gambling terminals across the city.
That’s based on the assumption that 80% of the 3,300 eligible establishments with off-premise liquor licenses will apply, but also that the Illinois Gaming Board would take six to eight months to grant those licenses.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), a strong City Council advocate for legalizing video gambling terminals, said the Illinois General Assembly authorized Bally’s to install airport slot machines years ago and the gaming giant has, so far, failed to take advantage of it.
Beale also argued that revenue raised at O’Hare and Midway must remain in the enterprise fund that supports airport operations. So repealing the ordinance that authorized video gambling would still leave the City Council with a budget hole to fill.
Mayor Brandon Johnson asked his ally, Workforce Development Chair and 22nd Ward Ald. Mike Rodriguez to hold Wednesday’s hearing to lay the groundwork to repeal the ordinance authorizing Chicago bars, restaurants and bowling alleys to install video gambling terminals.
Beale asked Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Commissioner Ivan Capifali why he has allowed 7,000 sweepstakes machines to operate illegally in Chicago.
Sweepstakes machines look like video slot machines but have managed to operate in a gray area of the law by offering “free play” options and coupons to winners instead of cash.
“I would like not to discuss sweepstakes machines in this forum. I am not going into gambling policy debates with you or anybody in this forum,” Capifali said. “The point of my statement was the implementation burdens that this ordinance, without BACP at the table, brought to us. That’s all I’m here to debate and to argue. I am not talking about sweepstakes or anything around VGTs.”
Beale then unloaded on Capifali before bringing Wednesday’s hearing to an abrupt halt.
“Ivan, you make excuses left and right. Your integrity is zero. You have none. … Ivan, commissioner, I believe that you need to resign because you are doing a disservice to the city of Chicago,” Beale said.
After accusing Johnson of going around the License Committee, whose chair supports video gambling, Beale said, “I motion that we adjourn this meeting because it’s not appropriate.”
The meeting then ended.
The decision to lift the Chicago ban on video gambling terminals has divided the City Council and exacerbated tensions between alderpersons and Johnson.
Bally’s has warned repeatedly that lifting Chicago’s ban on video gambling would cost the cash-strapped city $74 million in annual revenue and up to 1,050 jobs at its temporary and permanent casinos.
The casino giant has further warned that lifting the long-standing Chicago ban would force the Johnson administration to renegotiate “critical elements” of its host agreement, wipe out a yearly $4 million lump-sum payment from Bally’s and shrink the casino jackpot needed to save police and fire pension funds.
Johnson has raised strong objections to legalizing video gambling, in part because he said he believes it would violate the city’s host agreement with Bally’s, the gambling giant operating a temporary casino at Medinah Temple while building a permanent casino-entertainment complex in River West.
The mayor’s City Council allies have either banned or attempted to ban video gambling terminals in their individual wards while buying time for Johnson to find the votes to repeal the ordinance citywide.
Before Wednesday’s adjournment, Jewett argued that Bally’s signed the host agreement on the assumption that the city would “adhere to its long-standing agreement to prohibit VGTs.”
“Had we known that, within just a few years this body would reverse course and allow an alternative form of gambling that breaches the agreement, we would never agree to the numerous commitments, all of which we’ve held up,” he said.
License Chair and 50th Ward Ald. Debra Silverstein renewed her claim that Johnson went around her committee, where the video gambling ordinance was approved and a proposed repeal “belongs,” in favor of a committee chaired by a mayoral ally.