Tony, Tony, Tony, you have just scratched the tip of the iceberg that is the sordid world of Illinois politics and legalized riverboat gambling. I'll do my best to explain this situation to your well-intentioned but naive Texas view of this.
1) In the last decade or so Illinois decided to have limited casino gambling, to bring badly needed revenue to downstate (here in Illinois if it's not Chicago or the immediate suburbs it's called "downstate") towns down on their luck.
2) This would take the form of riverboats, you get on the boat, it departs for a several hour gambling cruise on the Mississippi or Illinois river, supposedly this will bring in tourist revenue.
3) Cook County (Chicago) was forbidden to have one of these boats, I guess the idea was to transfer $$ from Chicago to areas downstate in need of the revenue.
4) The licenses were not auctioned off to the highest bidder, rather they were awarded by a board appointed by the governor.
5) This being Illinois, the licenses (inreality to print money) went to those represented by political insiders, many of whom had curious relationships to certain, ahem, unsavory syndicate characters (ok, we'll just say "mafia")
6) All was well for the connected licensees, until...
7) Neighboring states decided they, too, could have casinos.
8) Indiana has the audacity to put casino boats in Gary, just across the border from Chicago.
9) Revenues for Illinois' boats plummets, as the huge Chicago market heads to the more convenient boats in Indiana.
10) The legislature re-writes the casino law to in such a way as to virtually guarantee a Harrah's (land based!!) casino in Rosemont, which is right next to O'hare Int'l Airport.
11) The shares to this casino are sold to every politically connected sleazeball and mafia-affiliated scumbag in the state.
12) The mafia influence is so blatant that even the governors hand-picked casino board denies the license for Rosemont, setting up a firestorm of lawsuits by Harrah's, Rosemont, and various investor groups, citing law that virtually guaranteed them this casino.
13) Governor Ryan, in a sea of scandal unrelated to this scandal, declines to run for re-election. The state Republican Party, in complete disarray because of Ryan's scandals, loses the legislature and the Governor's office to Democrats.
14) The state accumulates a $5 billion deficit.
15) The folly of limiting the number of casino licenses while also not offering them up for competitive bidding became apparent, both in terms of fostering corruption and reducing the state's revenues from the casinos.
My predictiopns for the future (does this qualify for the $1 million Randi prize?)
1) The state will take over the casinos.
2) Chicago Mayor Daley will suddenly develop a liking for a huge land-based casino in the city (to which he had long been opposed), maybe even on the site of the recently closed Meig's Field (don't have the time to get into the manner in which that was done).
3) The same insiders and pinky-ringed wise guys will end up running the state-owned casinos, and the state will collect more money from them.
4) At least the $$ won't flow to Las Vegas.
I don't think any other state has a worse track record of this sort than Illinois, people here are so jaded by it they don't seem to care any more.
