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 Experts predict Illinois could soon legalize
internet gambling, allowing residents to bet on virtual casino-style games such
as slots and roulette while raising an estimated $273.7 million a year in new
tax revenue for the state.
An East Coast Gaming Conference panel of executives said Illinois, New York,
Indiana and Iowa could all pass iGaming legislation soon. Illinois would be the
seventh state to legalize online casinos.
The executives said states such as Illinois, which saw rapid growth in sports
betting after legalizing it in 2019, already possess the necessary
infrastructure and regulatory systems to profit off the games.
“They already have regulators in place,” said Richard Schwartz, CEO of
Chicago-based online gambling company Rush Street Interactive. “They have
servers in place. It’s quicker to start up a casino addition.”
While the new report estimates Illinois will generate $273.7 million in annual
revenue from a matured internet gambling market, American Gaming Association
data shows mixed results in terms of actual state revenues.
Michigan reported collecting $2 billion from internet gamblers since January
2021, drastically surpassing predicted profits. But Delaware over nearly a
decade has only generated $42.2 million from the virtual casinos.
Illinois in fiscal year 2021 generated $1.36 billion in state taxes from
gambling. New forms of gambling have tended to come at the expense of older
ones, except for the continued dominance of lottery proceeds.
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Lawmakers in the Illinois Senate proposed legislation in 2021-2022 session to
legalize internet gambling, hoping to replicate the $1 billion-dollar windfall
Illinois experienced by taxing sports betting.
Chicago leaders have also started endorsing gambling as a source of new tax
revenue for the city’s massive pension debts, approving a $1.7 billion casino
development in the city’s River West neighborhood. Aldermen have touted the
project as optimistically paying for 9% of the city’s annual pension
contributions.
But like the River West development, new revenue from legalized internet
gambling would be negligible compared to savings were Illinois to confront its
public pension problem. To do that, the Illinois Constitution must be changed.
A “hold harmless” pension reform developed by the Illinois Policy Institute
would tie all pension cost-of-living adjustments to inflation rather than a
fixed rate of annual growth, saving the state more than $50 billion by 2045.
Right now, politicians are gambling with the retirements of Illinois’ state
workers by allowing pensions to eat over 25% of the state budget as the amount
those systems will eventually need balloons to $313 billion.
Trying to fill that hole is a sucker bet. Constitutional pension reform is what
Illinois needs.
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