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Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs
This has already happened. While we were all in covid lockdown - Illinois passed new gambling legislation in 2020. It granted casino licenses to all of the professional sports venues in Chicago, sans Soldier Field. That is what this "One Chicago" proposal is all about. One of the investors along with the Bears in the Arlington Height purchase IS Bet Rivers Casino in Des Plaines. Arlington Heights Racetrack is already eligible for a casino license with their current owners Churchill Downs partners. So yeah, a casino is a done deal for this venture.
BTW- Illinois' Sports Book revenues is second highest in the US after New Jersey. But ahead of Las Vegas.
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No. The state granted sports venues with over 17,000 seats the ability to apply for a sport book license within the venue, not a casino license. There is a limit to the number licenses that will be granted (something like 15 IIRC). Also if the venue is occupied by one than one sports team, all the teams that play there have to give their approval to the venue owner.
ETA - Arlington Park had the opportunity to apply for a casino license
provided that a percentage of casino revenues were set aside for racing purses. Churchill Downs/Arlington
turned down that opportunity. CDI is selling Arlington because they do not want a casino there to compete with Rivers in Des Plaines. It is not a done deal; it's the mirror opposite of a done deal.
What will likely happen, now that Arlington's 2021 race season is over and failed to apply for race dates for 2022, is that the Illinois Racing Board will pull CDI's state racing license and quickly force them to close their remote Off-Track Betting locations in the state. The gaming legislation allowed the race tracks to have a sports book on the premises as well as three sports book parlors at their OTBs. Hawthorne, when done, will have a PointsBet sports book at their OTBs in Crestwood, Oakbrook Terrace, and Prospect Heights. If Arlington had any BetRivers parlors at their OTBs, they will likely lose those as well.
According to WBEZ-
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But at the time in 2020, Phillips pitched the creation of a “sports betting lounge” within Soldier Field for Bears game days — “discreet location(s)” that would look and feel like a sportsbook with the live broadcast of NFL games on televisions along with the display of sports betting lines but not allow the placing of physical bets. Under the Bears’ proposal, there was money to be made in the advertising in the space.
In exchange, Phillips offered the Park District 20% of the revenue generated from the advertising in this space, according to emails.
But the offer from the Bears was met with a short, brusk statement from the Park District’s leader, who said the organization had been considering the implications of the legalization of sports betting in Illinois, which Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law in June 2019.
“At this time it would not be productive to pursue the opportunities outlined in your letter,” Kelly wrote to Phillips on Nov. 6, 2020. “Additionally, my team is working on a comprehensive design for the park and open space adjacent to the North end of Soldier Field. We will certainly consider your thoughts and opinions at the appropriate time as the project moves forward.”
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The whole thing stinks. From sources I've read, the Bears were not the high bidder for the race track. Ray Arnold's group, which includes Sterling Bay, supposedly was high bidder.
Churchill Downs is dumping Arlington now because the state will no longer pay out recapture money to the tracks, which CDI used for their race purses at Arlington.
The whole point of granting the race tracks the chance at casino licenses was to wean the tracks off recapture by requiring them to use a percentage of casino revenues for purse money.
Arlington is a short 12 miles away from Rivers Casino in Des Plaines. CDI did not want to compete against itself for casino money and then have to plow a percentage of the revenues into purses, when, for them, the recapture system of state-sponsored corporate welfare worked best. And they certainly didn't want any other group taking the track over and getting a casino license, either. Before the Bears' bid was even a thing Arlington Heights forbid Churchill from making a pledge to not race a condition of sale.
CDI only owned a minority stake in Rivers until 2019, when, knowing the sports betting/racino bill was being hammered out in Springfield (and that meant racinos and the end of recapture), they became majority owner. It was at that moment Arlington was dead in the water.
And who is the Bears' official sports book partner? Why, Rivers, of course.
If the Bears wanted to defray the cost of a new stadium at Arlington Park, they should consider selling the track to either of the two bidders who planned on keeping racing going, share the cost of parking and infrastructure, and build their stadium and develop any remaining land.
At least the property would see more than 8 or 10 game dates. And Arlington Heights would probably bend over backwards to get football and horse racing and racino revenues.