Editorial: Why video gambling needs more local control

Lawmakers who opened the door for video gambling in Illinois didn't anticipate we'd find the machines five years later in grocery stores.

Or in storefront "cafe casinos" designed around gambling. Or in gas stations.

Yet, that's where we are, with 26,589 video gambling machines in 6,064 establishments, the Illinois Gaming Board reports.

The most recent incursion in the suburbs came at the Piggly Wiggly in Antioch, where owner David Karczewski received a license from the village to serve alcoholic drinks, as some other suburban grocery stores do.

With that prerequisite in hand, he applied for and won a state gambling license. It's the first grocery store gambling site in the area, though there are two others downstate, the Daily Herald's Jake Griffin reports.

We've never been thrilled about video gambling, and its expansion beyond the initial locales written into the law - bars, restaurants, fraternal organizations, veterans groups and truck stops - troubles us a bit. Putting gambling machines where kids pass them on the way to the breakfast cereal aisle seems like a new frontier.

"That's what they have in Las Vegas," said longtime gambling opponent Anita Bedell, executive director of the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol & Addiction Problems.

We're not arguing any longer to do away with video gambling, and even if we were, we recognizue the challenge it would be to replace that revenue source. Illinois took in $27.6 million and towns got $5.5 million in May alone.

But we can back a change to state law proposed by the Antioch Village Board, where at least one trustee intended for the Piggly Wiggly to get the liquor license but not video gambling.

The village board, in a resolution, points out a fault in the gambling licensure process - once local authorities give a license to serve liquor, they have no control over whether that business also gets a gambling license. That's handled by the Illinois Gaming Board. If towns don't like it, their only choice is to opt out of video gambling altogether.

In issuing the liquor license, "I would have preferred to add a clause that prevented gaming, but ... that was not an option," Antioch Mayor Larry Hanson said of the Piggly Wiggly. situation.

Why not make it an option? It's reasonable to let local authorities set limits within the boundaries of the existing law. Antioch's example provides a persuasive argument for making the change.