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.
According to WBEZ-
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 worked best.
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 that 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.