The Early Bets Are In
Katelyn Wang 
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All eyes are set on Chicago’s upcoming casino opening. Chicago Mayor Lightfoot has put her support behind the Bally’s casino development, with the promise of $200 million worth of annual tax revenue for the city and the creation of thousands of jobs, many targeted for minority workers. Nonetheless, the high costs involved with bringing a casino to Chicago need to be accounted for if we want to ensure that the casino is on balance an asset and not a liability. Potential adverse effects on traffic, neighborhood relations, crime, and problem gambling suggest that significant progress needs to be made before the casino will be ready to serve the people of Chicago.
Bally’s Corporation is intending to open its Chicago casino by the year 2026 in River West, at the current site of the Chicago Tribune publishing facility. In the meantime, a temporary casino site is in the works at the Medinah Temple in River North, which could open as early as June of 2023. Chicago’s plan is the most recent addition to a nationwide wave of urban casino openings that hope to drive economic development through gaming.
A key area of contention for the temporary casino site is the increased traffic that the casino will draw to an already congested River North. Bally’s own commissioned study predictably minimized the traffic issue. One could hardly blame a profit-oriented company for being motivated to find that all is well with their lucrative proposal, but that is all the more reason for an independent assessment. Before any additional plans are made for the Medinah Temple site, traffic concerns need to be adequately addressed and accounted for in the development plans.
The success of Bally’s permanent casino requires a harmonious coexistence with neighbors, some of whom have called River West home for decades. The casino-based plan is quite ambitious, with new apartments, entertainment venues, restaurants, shops, and a hotel, all in the mix. Sustained communication and cooperation will be necessary to ensure that the casino-induced surge of new visitors to the area is tolerable for existing residents and businesses. But so far, the city has failed to provide much transparency in the decision-making process surrounding the casino.
Casinos can be a threat to public safety, and not just because they have been associated in the past with organized crime. Casinos attract customers who carry a lot of cash, and they can be targets for theft and carjacking and other illegal or unsavory devices to part them from their money. Casinos facilitate money laundering: large amounts of dirty money can be converted into chips or deposited into a betting account, then cashed out after a short while, complete with a veneer of cleanliness. It will be primarily the responsibility of the Illinois Gaming Board to implement a thorough inspection process to identify and report dangerous individuals who threaten the integrity of the casino establishment.
Problem gambling is another pressing concern. Roughly 4% of adults (about 383,000 people) in the state are considered to have a gambling problem – and the risks are greater for poor people and for people from Indigenous, Black, Hispanic, and Asian backgrounds. The disproportionate effect that problem gambling has on marginalized communities illustrates the broader racial inequities at play. With the allure of the anticipated new city casino that will draw in more gamblers from both within and outside of the state, it is paramount to protect vulnerable people against problem gambling. Yes, there are various warnings and toll-free help lines and even an under-promoted voluntary self-exclusion program, but these resources often are too little, too late, for problem gamblers. Stronger measures should be considered, such as requiring bettors to specify a loss limit in advance (and enforcing it), or using artificial intelligence to identify worrying gambling patterns at an early stage. Help needs to be easily available for those whose betting is in danger of spinning out of control.
As appealing as the anticipated tax revenues that will flow to the city from its new casino are, increased accessibility to gambling can have a significant impact on the social and mental well-being of residents – and marginalized communities are particularly at risk. If we want the casino’s impact to be positive and not negative, we need to get a handle on traffic concerns, neighborhood relations, crime, and problem gambling. The stakes are high.
The Public Policy Studies major at the University of Chicago attracts scores of excellent undergraduate students. All of these students take part in a capstone experience in their senior year. A new option for the capstone experience is the Policy Project Seminar, a one-quarter course devoted to honing policy analysis and communication skills. The theme adopted for the inaugural Autumn 2022 Project Seminar was “Chicago Through a Policy Lens.” The Chicago Policy Review is pleased to present this op-ed as part of our “Outside Voices” series.
