Kane County, no longer in a rush, tables video gambling vote

Neither fans nor opponents of video gambling saw the outcome they hoped for at the Wednesday meeting of Kane County's Video Gambling Task Force.

With only three of its five members present, Task Force Chairman Jesse Vazquez tabled a vote on making any recommendation about what to do about the possible gambling expansion. Task force member John Hoscheit could not attend the meeting. Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti is also on the task force but has not attended any of the recent meetings.

The Illinois Gaming Board is also not expected to publish any rules about video gambling machines, or issue any permits to actually have any of the machines until next year. County board attorney Ken Shepro told the task force that eliminates the need to make a rushed decision.

"The way the legislation is written, you can only prohibit it, but it doesn't say you can only prohibit it within a certain time," Shepro said.

With that in mind, task force members decided they'd like to hear some input from communities and the riverboat casino in the county before making a recommendation.

Vazquez said he's already spoken with Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner, who told him Aurora will not take any action to ban video gambling machines. Vazquez also said he's spoken with businesses in the unincorporated areas of Aurora who have already inquired about being annexed into the city if Kane County moves to ban video gambling.

As far as the casinos, Kane County Board members learned this week that revenues coming to the county from the casinos are already down 16 percent. Requests to use riverboat revenue to supplement the budgets of various county departments already surpasses the total amount of money the county expects to receive from the boats. Vazquez said he's sure the riverboats had their say before the state passed the gambling expansion, but he'd like to hear their thoughts in person before he votes.

The task force also directed Shepro to pass along a concern about the ambiguity of the state law when it comes to who polices video gambling once it is in place.

"The law says the gaming board, with the assistance of the state police and, as they determined, local authorities, shall enforce the law," Shepro said. "Well, what does that mean? We don't know."

Shepro said the expectation is local sheriffs would perform the background checks on potential video gambling licensees, but there is no money coming to the county from the state to hire more staff or pay current staff to do that. That means, any revenue expectations the county has about new income it would receive from video gambling may be partially offset by additional labor costs.