Everything You Need To Know About Legal Gambling In Illinois
I did a blog like this on Legal Weed yesterday in Illinois.
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Basic premise is I’ve got some contacts / attachés in the State Capital that feed me classified dossiers about the inner workings of state government:
1,000 Michael Jordans has never been done before
Naturally everybody’s excited because surprise surprise turns out most people like smoking weed and gambling. So here’s a simpleton breakdown on everything you need to know about the gambling revolution we just witnessed.
The Bad Stuff First = not everything is great. Remember, this is a law to raise money so there will be additional measures that will hit home with some of you:
+ New e-cig tax = 15% of wholesale price added onto retail price
+ $1 Increase to regular cig tax = $1.98/pack to $2.98/pack – that’s banaland
+ No more sales exemption on trade-in vehicles over $10k
+ Parking excise tax = no fucking clue what this means. Excise means a tax above the regular tax but
Cig taxes couldn’t be easier to pass with gaming laws. I’m willing to bet 95+% of those impacted by an increase to cig taxes Strongly Agree with gaming expansion so this one’s a no brainer.
The real laugh fest here is no sales exemption on trade-in vehicles with a farm equipment exclusion. That means when you trade in your car to free up all that cash you lost gambling, you’ll now have to pay sales tax on the full value of the new car. That’s aggressive.
The Good Stuff = Sports Wagering & Chicago Casino. Those are the 2 major developments so let’s take them one at a time.
(1) Sports Wagering
+ You can now place a bet at a Horse Racing Track, existing Casino, OTB’s (3), Sports Facilities and soon to be online but they’re working through bids on all that so don’t expect any big news soon.
+ Horse Racing Tracks = the two big ones are Arlington (north) and Hawthorne (south)
+ Existing Casinos = Alton (by St. Louis), Peoria, Rock Island (I’m personally banned from this place), Joliet 2x, Harrahs S. IL, East St. Louis (heard it’s super nice), Elgin Grand Vic and Rivers in Des Plaines. There’s enough there for everyone.
+ OTB’s = There’s 43 OTB’s in the State. The law allows for Horse Racing Tracks to pick 3 of them to take on Sportsbooks.
+ Sports Facilities = this is the best part by far. The law allows for a location either On-Site or within a 5 block radius for a SportsBook at 7 of the following 8 locations:
1. Wrigley Field
2. Guaranteed Rate
3. United Center
4. SeatGeek Stadium (place where the Fire play)
5. Soldier Field
6. Chicagoland Speedway (Joliet)
7. World Wide Technology Raceway (Metro East)
8. All State Arena
My guess is All State Arena doesn’t get the designation because they don’t host nearly as much action as the other places. That’s a simple logic test.
What else on Sports Wagering…
+ New racetrack likely coming to Chicago suburbs
+ Can’t bet on Illinois college sports
+ To work in sports Wagering you’ll need a $250 license with a $100 annual re-licensing fee. Kind of bullshit if you ask me.
+ I think Barstool would have to pay a $25k annual fee to receive compensation for marketing services which is another way of saying we have to spend $25,000 if someone wants to sponsor us. Wild stuff.
+ Overall it’s pretty wild stuff that you’ll be able to post up on a November Wednesday night at an OTB in Crestwood with your Uncle Billy and watch Toledo lose the month’s mortgage payment on 28-yard shank as time expires.
To some of you that may sound Stupid, but a lot of us around here value things like Liberty and Free Choice.
And if sports gambling isn’t your thing (how the fuck have you made it this far?) then good news: we’re getting 6 new Casinos.
(2) Casino
+ Bad news. The law changes the name of our Casino legislation from the Riverboat Gambling Act which is a pretty epic name for anything much less a law. And we’ve replaced it with Illinois Gambling Act to leave no confusion as to what we’re legalizing here.
+ Fuck your Riverboat Gambling
+ 6 new locations: Chicago, somewhere by U of Illinois, Wakegan, Rockford, South Suburbs and somewhere near the Big Muddy River whatever the fuck that means
+ Chicago would have 4,000 “positions” which is about 2.5 times the size of Rivers and 1.5 times the size of the Horseshoe. It’s a Big Boy.
+ Chicago would get 33% of the adjusted gross receipts direct to the Fire and Police pension which is underfunded in excess of $1Billion.
+ To be clear, that’s 33% of the following equation = (Bets Accepted – Bets Paid).
+ Tony Soprano didn’t take 33%
+ Airports will get slot machines, but how many will be determined by the Casino. The 4,000 “positions” are combined between the Casino and airports so O’Hare and Midway will only get what they can from the pile.
+ Temporary Facility = tracks and casinos may conduct gaming at a temporary facility pending the construction of a permanent facility or the remodeling or relocation of an existing facility to accommodate gaming participants for up to 24 months after the temporary facility begins to conduct gaming.
+ Video Gaming = The legislation increases the maximum bet from $2 to $4 and the maximum cash award for a maximum wager from $500 to $1,199 and provides a progressive per licensed establishment up to $10,000 jackpot.