NW Illinois News

Illinois is not reaping the expected windfall from legalized gambling, which began with high hopes before pandemic-driven shutdowns this year. 

COVID-19 has had a severe impact on the state's gaming statistics for Fiscal Year 2020, June 30, Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability Senior Analyst Eric Noggle said in a report.

"Looking at state-related tax revenues generated from (gaming-related) sources, gaming revenues fell 13.4% in FY 2020 from $1.4 billion to $1.2 billion," Noggle's report said. "This decline is in large part due to the suspension of video gaming and casino operations between March 16 and June 30, which thereby prevented any revenues from being generated from these sources during this time period."

Gov. J.B. Pritkzer signed legalized land-based and mobile sports gambling in Illinois into law last summer and the state was poised to become the "Gambling Capital of the Midwest." The state expected to take in about $2 billion in one-time licensing fees and then about $400 million per year once the gambling market was up and running in the state.

Gambling in Illinois also was expected to create thousands of temporary construction jobs and thousands of other jobs in Chicago's casino and regional casinos in Danville, Rockford and Waukegan, as well as in Williamson and Cook counties.

The first legal bets were placed in Illinois early in March, but COVID-19 forced the state's 10 casinos to shut down almost immediately after. The casinos benefited from a tax break when they re-opened in July, but Noggle said in his report that re-opening the casinos isn't likely to produce the large amounts of money flowing into state coffers.

"Although this suspension has been since lifted, gaming has only returned on a limited basis and it remains unclear how long these limitations will last," Noggle's report said. "Even with the resumption of wagering, it is expected that the ramifications of the pandemic on public confidence will persist for some time."