Kane County may change mind on video gambling ban

A Kane County vote that came up lemons for advocates of video gambling expansion may yet hit the jackpot, now that appears board members will revisit the recent ban in early 2010.

The Kane County Board's legislative committee said Monday it wants another vote on the issue after board members meet with state lawmakers. The meeting will involve the county's legislative agenda for 2010. Members of the committee said they foresee a tough sell involving any request for more state money given the county board's rejection of video gambling.

"It puts our legislators at a disadvantage as they advocate for us," said board member Bill Wyatt. "We're going to pound our fist on the table and say we want more money coming back to the county. Well, we just passed a vote that said we're not going to participate in funding for the capital bill we pushed for."

Committee Chairman Hollie Lindgren, who voted to ban video gambling, said the indication from Springfield is that lawmakers will likely tweak video gambling legislation. Any community that rejected video gambling will probably be blocked from receiving any of the capital projects funded by video gambling, Lindgren said.

"Our lawmakers want to talk to us about it," Lindgren said. "They're mad. We better be ready to address this."

Wyatt, who voted in favor of video gambling, said the county will most likely lose the $4 million it receives in discretionary money the state sends to individual counties as a result of its rejection of video gambling. The rationale behind the loss is that the county must not be hurting for money if board members rejected a new revenue source.

"If there's another funding source for the capital bill, we should be willing to discuss that," Wyatt said. "The problem with video gaming is that's a discretionary tax. It's hard to come up with another discretionary tax."

Wyatt said the worst case scenario is for the legislature to raise a tax or create a new tax that applies to everyone, not just gamblers, to pay for the capital bill.

Lindgren said she'd like to see the county take another vote on video gambling as soon as January.

County Board Attorney Ken Shepro said the board doesn't need to attract any converts who voted to ban video gambling to reconsider the ban. Instead, the board could simply pass a brand new ordinance supporting video gambling that supersedes the recent ban.

Three board members in favor of video gambling missed the initial vote.

Lindgren said she believes many of the votes to ban video gambling stemmed from a lack of information on the direct impact to the county and overall confusion about how video gambling will be regulated. Lindgren said meeting with local state lawmakers should help clear up that confusion.

"I don't think we would've voted 'no' if we couldn't get back into this," Lindgren said. "We did what we did, and now we need to try to fix it."