Gaming board to renew quest for final casino license
As the Illinois Gaming Board announced Monday it will move "as quickly as possible" to issue the long-dormant Emerald Casino license, two conspicuous questions lingered.
How quickly and how much?
It obviously won't come in time to solve the crisis that finds state leaders at an impasse over Chicago-area mass transit funding, but the numbers certainly have budget watchers interested in haste.
Chairman Aaron Jaffe said during a special meeting that the gaming board has directed its staff to take the first preliminary step: hiring an investment banker to provide the expertise needed to make the so-called 10th license once slated for Rosemont available to casino investors.
Gaming officials would not give an expected timetable for re-issuing the 10th license, but Jaffe made it clear the board wants to move as quickly as the process allows. He estimated the state already has lost $1 billion in revenue because of the casino license being out of circulation for a decade.
With new casino proposals now in play, it is a matter of conjecture whether the 10th license will fetch as much as once projected and how much cash for Illinois a Rosemont casino would generate. Still, investors bid $350 million upfront for the Rosemont license in 2004, before Attorney General Lisa Madigan and a reconstituted gaming board began almost immediately taking steps to wrest the license away in court because of alleged mob ties among investors.
Elgin's Grand Victoria, the state's most successful operation, contributed $227 million in state and local taxes last year. A Rosemont casino is expected to produce at least that much.
Kevin Foley, a vice president for Moody's Investors Service in New York, said the 10th license represents value to investors because it is, for now, the last ticket available for entry into the Illinois market.
"Illinois is not necessarily a bad market," Foley said, although he added the state has a history of tax increases on casinos and "pretty aggressive legislation" in terms of regulation that might concern potential investors.
The gaming board's accelerated effort to re-issue the license occurs as state legislators are weighing expanded casino gambling as a means for funding a state capital program for school, road and bridge construction and, perhaps, for infusing cash into Chicago-area transit systems.
The most frequently mentioned Springfield scenario has lawmakers authorizing one casino for Chicago and two others elsewhere -- in addition to the existing 10th license.
While gaming board officials seem confident expanded casino gambling will arrive sooner rather than later, an attorney for Emerald investors says he still has legal options to exercise. Robert Clifford, an Inverness attorney with offices in Chicago, said after the state Supreme Court's refusal last week to hear Emerald's appeal that the legal battle is far from over. Clifford was unavailable Monday to elaborate.
One suburban community watching developments closely is Waukegan, which has long argued that it fits the profile of the economically distressed community that Illinois casinos originally were designed to benefit.
Ray Vukovich, Waukegan's director of governmental services, noted that his city still has a 32-acre site reserved for a casino.
"Waukegan is still out there," Vukovich said, "ready, willing and able to be host of another casino site. It would be good not just for Waukegan but good for Illinois to have that issue behind us. This license has been dormant for too long."