
Illinois Bet on Video Gambling and Lost - danso
https://features.propublica.org/the-bad-bet/how-illinois-bet-on-video-gambling-and-lost/
======
lojaff-PPIL
Hi all — I'm a reporter involved with this video gambling story at ProPublica
Illinois. The story mentions video gambling addiction may be on the rise.
We're looking to learn more about that directly from people affected by it. If
you or someone you know compulsively plays the video slot or poker machines
anywhere in the state, please consider answering a few confidential questions
here: [https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/help-us-
investigate-i...](https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/help-us-investigate-
illinois-video-gambling-addiction)

By sharing your story, you'll be helping us understand this important and
overlooked cost of video gambling expansion. Thank you!

-Logan Jaffe logan.jaffe@propublica.org

~~~
ordinaryperson
Logan I don't have names for you but this story is spot on, I hope the Trib
and local news stations pick it up.

Video gambling is totally amok in many parts of Chicago and its environs.

For people who haven't seen it in person: even regular Mom & Pop restaurants
have video slots. Donut shops. Italian sandwiches. Bars. Imagine if Subway
devoted a quarter of its restaurants to video slots. It's crazy.

And watching the people who play these games it's obvious it's not rich
people, it's most often (IMO) fixed-income retirees. People who can least
afford it.

I'm for legalized gambling but what's going on in Illinois right now is
totally bonkers. Legalizing video slots and putting them everywhere is the
second dumbest idea in Illinois since Mayor Daley sold off some of the
highways.

~~~
tomcam
> I'm for legalized gambling

How do you prevent people who can't afford it from gambling when it's legal?

~~~
sgjohnson
I’m for legalised gambling too.

You simply don’t. Not your problem. If an adult decides to gamble, it’s his
decision and none of your business.

~~~
fipple
When he loses all his money and then needs welfare or starts mugging people it
becomes my business.

~~~
sgjohnson
And the solution is stand your ground law.

~~~
fipple
If I have to get into a gunfight on the street because banning gambling
machines would be against “freedom” well I guess I’m not that into freedom.

~~~
sgjohnson
It’s about deterrance. Hardly anyone is going to attempt anything funny if you
might be packing.

------
tofof
It really is a blight. Everywhere you go (other than Chicago) there are
sleazy-looking banners offering video gambling. Even unexpected places.
Literally every strip mall I'm aware of has at least one, regardless of the
income tier the strip mall targets. Even the mom & pop diner just off the
highway now has its windows plastered with adverts for video slots and video
poker.

Searching for video gambling will only turn up the dedicated establishments
(it doesn't turn up that diner, nor many dozens of bars) but you can still see
how ridiculous it is from searching any downstate community.

[https://www.google.com/maps/search/video+gambling/@40.116774...](https://www.google.com/maps/search/video+gambling/@40.1167747,-88.2827851,16z)

Here, the same chain has locations barely a thousand feet from one another,
and they're not even the only dedicated dens in that immediate area.

Bar - doesnt show up when searching 'video gambling':
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.117862,-88.2040812,3a,75y,97...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.117862,-88.2040812,3a,75y,97.9h,80.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVdErxAGriHxia1Zwr4JBDQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

Family Diner - every window is now covered with gambling advertisements, but
street view is from 2015, before they converted. Still useful for
understanding how persvasive the spread is and the types of businesses that
are converting to stay competetive.
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1329083,-88.2190425,3a,75y,6...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.1329083,-88.2190425,3a,75y,68.14h,79.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sLvwPz8saESAYSb_XSSJoew!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

~~~
iqy
On an unrelated note, as a non-American, it's stunning to see how wide those
roads are, how big those parkings are, and the amount of SUVs and pickup
trucks. I mean, that's kind of the American stereotype, but it calls my
attention to see that it's actually true. (Speaking about the last link in
particular.)

~~~
tptacek
Keep in mind that restaurant is on the outskirts of Urbana and footsteps away
from I-74 in a very rural part of Illinois. It's a college town, but that's a
couple miles away from the campus.

Most Illinoisans live in or around Chicago. Chicago has big streets too, but
does not look like Urbana:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.970376,-87.7207679,3a,75y,6....](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.970376,-87.7207679,3a,75y,6.89h,90t/data=!3m10!1e1!3m8!1sHSQFRiwrBbA01YsuALixkw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DHSQFRiwrBbA01YsuALixkw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D79.00348%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192!9m2!1b1!2i45)

------
jostmey
Quote "At every key point, state officials made decisions that undercut
taxpayers and helped the companies that market video gambling"

And that is one reason why I left Chicago. Both city and state are corrupt. I
remember receiving an automated ticket for running a stoplight on a date when
I wasn't even in Chicago.

~~~
bduerst
I got a ticket for running a light in Chicago, but because I was from out of
state, it took them 'extra long' to send me the ticket in the mail (their
words when I called). By the time they had mailed me the ticket, the deadline
to pay had already passed and the fine had doubled.

~~~
brink
Something like this happened to me as well.

I skipped a toll station on the highway; which should be fine. A sign tells
you that you can pay online within 7 days by searching your license plate. The
next day I searched my license plate to pay what should have been $3-$4 in
tolls and nothing came up. A month later I got a letter in the mail telling me
that I owed the state around $100 for the tolls I "failed to pay" with nearly
$90 assessed in late fees. The whole system is scummy.

Literal highway robbery.

~~~
petronic
I had a similar issue after moving from Illinois to Wisconsin and getting new
plates - but forgetting to update the plates within I-Pass. (So, I had a valid
I-Pass, it was just on the same old car with new plates.)

A few years later I received a collections notice for $1,400 for ~$30 worth of
tolls. (This was the first notice they'd sent me. No one could explain why.)

After spending hours on the phone with I-Pass the best they could do was
reduce the fine to $300 while making the snarky offer that I could go to court
if I didn't like it.

This was effectively a customer service issue (I was a valid customer in good
standing), and I still wound up paying 10x the actual cost just to avoid
missing work and traveling.

~~~
hermitdev
As an Illinois resident, I had a different experience dealing with I-Pass
issues. Apparently my card on file expired, so they couldn't refill my
account. By the time I realized a week or so after noticing that I was getting
the yellow light and not blue, I updated the card, paid the outstanding tolls.
A month later, I get a fine notice for like $500. I called customer service.
Took about 90 minutes on hold, but once I got a hold of someone, the gal was
very pleasant, took a look at my account, said something along the lines of
"Your accounts in good standing, I'll cancel the fines." Never heard another
peep about it. Also one of the few times I asked to speak with her manager to
let the manager how happy I was with the service (rare for a government
employee).

~~~
lightanchor
Worth mentioning the ipass (and tollway) phone lines are actually handled by a
group that helps people who are blind, visually impaired, disabled and
Veterans. I have never had a bad experience with calling in.

~~~
hermitdev
I was not aware of that. Good to know.

------
jopsen
The shear absurdity of trying to fund anything beyond pet projects using
gambling taxes should be clear to anyone.

This is pretty much a privatized tax collection for deliberately preying on
the weak.

I mean do the reverse math, if gambling revenue had met expectation, how much
money would the poor have had to burn on gambling?

------
specialp
I am in support of legalized gambling but the way it is done in states like
Illinois and New York (my state) just preys on problem gamblers and is indeed
a money grab by the state.

The arguments for making gambling illegal or restricted in these states are
all nullified by the state running them. They offer games with bad odds, in
poor facilities. New York sued daily fantasy sites saying it is "dangerous and
addictive" but then reeled that all back once they agreed to get a cut of the
action.

------
dghughes
I used to work for my uncle who had video games, pinballs and video slots. It
was semi-regulated years ago but then more rigidly controlled. And yes there
people who ranged from addicted to casual as were the drinkers at the bar.

It's not the machine it's the thrill though. MY uncle was contacted by a man's
wife who said he dumped his entire paycheque into the slots. My uncle took a
slot machine to the man's house, set it for free play but the man was not
interested in that. The devices people use for gambling slots, dice, cards,
don't matter it's not what it is it's the result people desire.

I've seen people win $100,000 get it in cash and dump it all back in and be
happy. Or others who spend $1,000 to win a $50 bonus pot, a very common thing.

I can even somewhat tell what models of slots are in the picture in the
article shows a (left) IGT/Spielo Prodigi VU, (middle)a WMS BB2 and (right) a
Bally AP-1 V32.

~~~
technofiend
>It's not the machine it's the thrill though. [...] set it for free play but
the man was not interested in that.

In my humble layman's opinion it's the risk taking. There's no risk in playing
a free machine and there's no reward since it won't pay anything.

------
tptacek
Just a statistical nit: the article states that there are more non-casino
video gaming machines in Illinois than in any other state in the country,
including Nevada. While that's true in absolute terms (based on ProPublica's
figures from this article) the opposite is true in per-capita terms. There are
more machines in Illinois than in Nevada, but there are also more people in
Illinois than Nevada by a factor of 4, and, consulting the table in the
article, you'll see that there are not 4 times more machines in Illinois. In
fact, per-capita, according to this table, Illinois ranks last, not first.

(I agree with I think most of this thread that these things are a blight.)

~~~
sailfast
What happens to that statistic if you subtract the areas where this is not
legal (the entire city of Chicago - actually looks like all of Cook County,
and I haven't seen any of these machines inside the county)? My guess would be
that stat goes up quite a bit.

~~~
kevinmchugh
There's video gambling in some of the southwest suburbs. Palos Hills, Orland
Park. Those are both Cook.

~~~
robohoe
Which are both hard to get to without public transport that one sees in
Chicago proper (PACE barely counts). A lot of folks in the city don’t own a
car. At the same time those same folks are probably smarter than to spend
money at gambling parlors.

~~~
kevinmchugh
palos and orland are pretty reachable by metra, though the times aren't ideal.
Once you're there my memory is that it's walkable enough to a bar with
gambling. It'd also be like a $5 uber/lyft from the metra.

My suspicion is that urban gamblers mostly take the blue line to the shuttle
to Rivers.

~~~
kasey_junk
Horseshoe runs something like hourly shuttles to Chinatown.

------
elhudy
In a kind of dark way, this is great news. It will be useful for other states,
as well as the city of Chicago, to have an example use case for NOT legalizing
video lottery.

~~~
vibrato
Maybe we can prohibit drinking and drugs eventually, too!

~~~
elhudy
Sensing this is sarcasm relating to the restriction of freedom of choice, and
would like to address it in a couple ways that might provide a different
perspective.

The point isn't that gambling shouldn't be legal anywhere; it's that the
current state of the government is unable to properly handle the social and
financial oversight and fallout in regards to taking such immense measures.
Compared to other state's tax rates, there is no reason why Illinois should be
on the low (30%) end.

>the Video Gaming Act allocates just 5 percent of the revenue from the
machines to local governments, even though they shoulder the bulk of the
social costs related to gambling

Think about that - it's crazy. Five. Percent. Sometimes it is worth
restricting the freedoms of individuals if they have a large net detrimental
affect on society. At five percent they most certainly do. The majority of
said society should decide whether restrictions are to be redacted, not a
handful of politicians who live in the pockets of lobbyists.

------
pssflops
Heck, even gas stations around my area have signs stating "VIDEO GAMING" like
it will draw in patrons with nothing better to do. The convenience shop down
the street from me (Chicago outskirts) routinely has people occupying seats
and looking dejected, but not actually playing any of the gambling games when
I'm there.

~~~
sandworm101
I don't like the term "Video Gaming". I play video games. I'm a bit of a
gamer. But I am in no way any sort of gambler. Conflating the two makes one
look less a dangerous vice, the other more of one. Video games and gambling
terminals are totally different things.

(Yes, the lootbox debate, but you know of what I speak).

~~~
lupire
gaming has included gambling since gambling was invented.

gam·ing /ˈɡāmiNG/ noun

1\. the action or practice of playing gambling games. "gaming is evident
everywhere in Las Vegas, not just on the Strip"

2\. the action or practice of playing video games. "I'm fourteen years old and
enjoy gaming and playing baseball"

~~~
weberc2
"gaming" has long included gambling, but _" video gaming"_ has only recently
included gambling, in the popular lexicon, anyway (no doubt you can dig up an
obscure reference from long ago; law of averages and all that).

~~~
hermitdev
Video gambling has been around a long time. Greasy spoon/truck stop diner my
family frequented as a kid some 30 years ago had video poker & keno. And they
weren't hidden away in a corner - they were right there in the dining area.

~~~
weberc2
Sure, but that doesn’t contradict one word of my post. I suspect you’re trying
to make the argument I preemptively rebutted with my “law of averages”
reference.

------
djhworld
I watched this a year or so ago, it might have been on YouTube but got taken
down

[http://kachingfilm.com/](http://kachingfilm.com/)

It's a documentary about video gambling machines in Australia, quite eye
opening to say the least....

------
cwal37
The knock-on effects from this poorly considered legislation are ridiculous:

 _The legalization of video gambling also triggered another shift in the
state’s revenues, one that led to a drop in education funding. While the bulk
of video gambling revenue goes to fund Illinois Jobs Now!, most of the state’s
casino revenue flows into the Education Assistance Fund, which provides grants
to public elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities for
building projects and other expenses.

But when video gambling became legal, gamblers no longer had to travel to the
state’s 10 casinos to place a bet. Between 2013 and 2017, state revenue from
casinos in Illinois declined 15 percent, from $462 million to $393 million, as
income from video gambling machines grew nearly 900 percent, from $30 million
to $300 million, state records show.

The cannibalization of casino revenue contributed to a 22 percent decline in
the amount of money going to the Education Assistance Fund between 2013 and
2017, leaving fewer dollars for the state’s struggling schools._

~~~
babaganoosh89
Seems more like a tax distribution problem than anything else. Casino revenues
went down $69 million, but video gambling revenue went up $270 million. Seems
like a good deal tax wise.

~~~
moate
Also, the bottom line is that these sorts of "solutions" are just a way to
increase the pool of discretionary spending funds. Dedicated revenue sources
almost always seem like a way for the state to pass an unpalatable vice
product (legalized pot or gambling being two big ones recently) to the
citizens. "Hey, you're going to have people gambling in your back yard, but
it's for the kids! Please don't notice that while the gambling generates an
extra X million, we also cut X million from the general fund allocation to the
same expense"

TL;dr- I'm fine with this stuff being legalized, but this helps demonstrate
the possible backfiring with the feel good optics often tied to this sort of
thing.

------
rb808
I can kind of understand how people get addicted to Video games, spending all
their days and nights behind a screen. I dont understand how you can do the
same feeding money into a random machine with flashing lights and nice sounds
non stop.

~~~
klenwell
You will be interested in this NY Times article from 2004:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/magazine/chrome-shiny-
lig...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/magazine/chrome-shiny-lights-
flashing-wheel-spinning-touch-screened-drew-carey.html)

I suspect a lot of the techniques mentioned in the article made their way from
slot machine design into mobile games.

~~~
rb808
Wow maybe I'm out of touch.

------
eyepulp
I'm a trustee on the board of a very small village in Illinois. There was a
vote to allow the gaming before I got on the board, and only one vote since
then to approve a new license for an establishment. I argued the income-vs-
sleaze ratio was lousy, but was out-voted. I wish I'd had this article and its
facts to back up my more emotional reasoning for not liking it.

Video gambling is indeed a blight, even if it is profitable, but this article
only makes it more depressing to see just how worthless (or actively punitive)
it is to all but the companies that apparently wrote the original legislation.

------
dgzl
I lived in Capital City / a Central Illinois for a year, and I was blown away
with how many establishments hosted gambling video games. Granted, most bars
were divey, but even the ones that weren't (i.e. the nice bars in town) still
keep a little section in the corner that looks like a degenerate's arcade.

I should also mention that housing is _cheap_ in this area. I'm talking 2br1ba
house with garage and front/back yard, one mile from downtown for $600. So,
renting a large commercial property was likely cheap as well.

------
chicagobob
While there are clearly communities where this is a problem, I've lived in
Chicago, now I live in the suburbs and still work downtown, and honestly
outside of OTB and the Casinos, have never actually seen a video gambling
machine in Illinois. So, this is not a state wide blight, but more of an
isolated problem in various places.

~~~
yborg
As noted in the article, you most likely live in an affluent suburb. They
don't have these things in Lake Forest or Barrington. On my way to work, on a
short strip of road that runs through Hoffman Estates there are two Shelby's
within a 1000 ft of each other. They are almost always empty apart from one or
two patrons, yet they have been there for a couple of years now - I assume the
few problem gamblers in the immediate area are literally supporting these
places. Even if they _were_ generating significant revenue for their
municipalities, the whole enterprise is immoral.

------
newnewpdro
I left the state before the gambling and concealed carry changes took place.

My last visit was approx two years ago and it was impressive how much worse
everything seemed to be. Highway rest stops with "no firearms" stickers
affixed to their glass doors, the highly visible kind with a red circle and
diagonal stripe over a black pistol. Those stickers are all over the place
now, it felt like I must be surrounded by lethal weapons, what a miserable way
to live.

The prolific gambling dens and video gambling machines just made everywhere
feel like an urban ghetto wasteland on top of it.

I'm thrilled to have escaped before it got so much worse. The corruption was
already exceptionally bad. The monetary costs and stress I endured throughout
my adult years spent there on police encounters, traffic fines, parking
tickets, towing fees, it's completely insane.

Living in CA is an absolute dream in comparison. We may have high state taxes
but I'm not constantly getting antagonized by a corrupt government desperate
to raise money through continuous public contact. There are also extremely
affordable parts of CA, I own desert property that's fully paid for just a
couple hours from LA and the Pacific coast, an hour from Big Bear. The yearly
property taxes are equal to a fancy dinner, 5 acres and a cabin for the price
of a car. People obsess over the housing problems of very specific
internationally-desirable elite-class pockets of CA, there's plenty of CA to
go around.

<storytime>

The first time (and only in over 10 years) I ended up in traffic court in CA
was for excessive speeding, it was for 90+ in a 55 - a mandatory court
appearance. The police interaction was more entertaining than stressful, and
when I went to court the judge started the session by announcing that the
state had requested _all_ fines be pushed to their maximum due to some
temporary political budget problems. She then announced, that in protest,
since the county doesn't find it appropriate given the general economic
downturn, all penalties issued that day would be at the absolute minimum. I
paid less than a hundred bucks for that ticket.

This situation, from start to finish, would _never_ have happened in IL. I
would have had police with guns drawn on me when pulled over, searching my
vehicle after smelling nonexistent marijuana. The judge would have been a
dickhead obsessed with people removing their hats in his courtroom before
wiping out their savings accounts.

</storytime>

~~~
hermitdev
> it felt like I must be surrounded by lethal weapons, what a miserable way to
> live.

You already were, but now it's legal for law-abiding citizens to have them.

~~~
newnewpdro
The average law-abiding citizen I knew back in IL was one heated discussion on
a bad day away from shooting someone had they always been carrying.

Furthermore, the vast majority of people qualify as law-abiding citizens. A
very small minority of the population will illegally carry firearms with them.
I do not accept your statement as anywhere near accurate.

------
blang
Anyone have an examples outside of Vegas and maybe the first two Connecticut
casinos where bringing in legalize gambling actually derived on the promise of
raising projected revenue benefiting the wider economy?

~~~
porpoisely
Gambling is zero sum, so within a closed system, it can never be beneficial.
The only way it can be beneficial is if it extracts value from outside of a
particular locality and distributed the losses externally. Why vegas or macau
can succeed is because most of the gambling in these cities is done by people
outside of vegas and macau. If gambling in vegas was confined only to the
people of vegas, then vegas would collapse as a portion of their citizens'
lives are ruined.

Though I'm personally against all types of gambling, I believe in individual
rights and a person's right to waste their money as they see fit. However, I
don't think governments should be so closely tied to it and I certainly don't
think governments should be depending on it for funding of any sort. They
should tax the companies involved in gambling, but they should be "in bed with
them" so to speak. And I don't think state governments should be involved in
lotteries either. Lotteries should be purely private and the government should
tax it. I don't think a moral or sane government that truly cares about and
represents their citizenry could be involved in lotteries or gambling.

~~~
smallstepforman
How is gambling a zero sum game? According to the article, taxes from the
Casino operations are $393M, and from clubs operations $300M, so thats $693
tax revenue the government wouldn't otherwise have. How many hospitals,
schools and other social facilities can be built with $693M per year. Also add
in the venue staff running the place, the builders building the facilities,
the engineers and technicians building the machines, etc. An enormous amount
of people are employed in the industry, and the government gets $693M per year
extra which it wouldn't have it Gaming was illegal. How is this a zero sum
equation?

~~~
porpoisely
Gambling is a zero sum game because by nature, it creates no new or additional
value. It's simply a matter of definition.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zero-
sumgame.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zero-sumgame.asp)

In other words, someone wins and someone loses. Just because someone benefits
doesn't mean it isn't a zero sum game. Stealing is also a zero sum game. It
benefits the criminals who steal ( but no new value is created ). It's simply
a transfer of wealth, not a creation of wealth. That's why it is zero sum.

------
wenc
I'm glad this is illegal in Chicago, but I feel for the rest of Illinois.

~~~
exhilaration
The article says that all of the current mayoral candidates want to legalize
it in Chicago.

~~~
moorhosj
==all the front-runners in the city’s Feb. 26 mayoral primary support some
version of a casino, and some want to bring in video gambling as well.==

This is explicitly about video gambling which "some" supported. All of them
supported a city casino in that particular forum. It's semantics, but the
difference is meaningful as a casino would be a single location that also
employs significant people and these video gambling machines are self-run and
in restaurants, gas stations and bars.

~~~
hermitdev
Isn't Rivers Casino (right near Ohare) in Chicago city limits? I've been
there, and they definitely have all sorts of video gambling, but maybe they
were granted an exemption?

I've been to Rivers a few times with the intent to do some light gambling
($200 cash, no more) and ended up not wagering a single bet. Just landed my
butt at the bar instead. I'd rather a reasonably priced McCallan than a
minimum $50 wager for a hand of blackjack.

~~~
kyteland
Rivers Casino is across the city line in the suburb of Des Plaines. It is not
within city limits.

------
vasilipupkin
here is a different perspective:

illinois should concentrate on not worrying too much about what consenting
adults do in their spare time. Until recently, even happy hours were illegal.
Illinois should concentrate on fixing the state so that people are not fleeing
in droves. Legal gambling is the last issue that the state should be concerned
with.

~~~
i_am_nomad
The problem is that "consent" isn't a binary, it's on a continuum. When people
are bombarded nonstop with advertising for video gambling, eventually some of
them will take the bait. And those who do will be the ones more susceptible to
the inherent lure of gambling, and as such the ones most likely to be addicted
to it.

~~~
vasilipupkin
sure. On the flip side, few years ago I went to a casino in Rosemont, had a
good time, ate a steak, played a few games and went home. And I am not
addicted to anything and don't want it closed. 20% of people who drink alcohol
get addicted. Should we close every bar in Chicago?

~~~
freewilly1040
The straw man of banning gambling everywhere is not what this is about. Sure,
consenting adults should be able to indulge in vices, but we should regulate
them to reduce the social harm they cause.

~~~
vasilipupkin
that is a straw man itself. it is already regulated.

------
paulie_a
While not video gambling directly, but there are plenty of those places
around. Chicago really is obsessed with scratch off tickets and gambling in
general. It is pretty sad. It's amazing to see the same people on a regular
basis just throwing away money like that. 20 dollars at a time.

------
bluedino
In our state we have 'Nudgemaster' machines at bars, restaurants, bowling
alleys. Video gambling isn't legal here (except at a casino), and these
devices skirt the laws by accepting cash, and only giving out gift cards or
merchandise as prizes.

------
acchow
Isn't it clear and obvious that gambling is non-productive and negative sum?

~~~
mbrameld
That describes lots of activities.

------
sizzzzlerz
So when gambling has failed to produce enough revenue, maybe, as a fallback,
they might consider raising taxes to, you know, pay for all the things they
need.

~~~
lamarpye
That is funny. Illinois has some of the highest taxes in country.

[https://www.google.com](https://www.google.com)

~~~
clint
state income tax is laughably low

~~~
mkaziz
4.95% flat rate is pretty high.

~~~
notfromhere
the states around illinois have a higher income tax, but they also have a
progressive tax system which lessens the pain for lower income households.

------
bigtech
tldr: legalizing video gambling has brought in additional revenue, but not as
much as expected. Illinois borrowed money in advance based on the expected
rates.

~~~
lupire
That's good news. The public isn't being plundered by gambling as bad as
government indented.

~~~
lamarpye
True, all the public has to do is pay back the money the government didn't
make from gambling. That is a win, not in my book, but in some book.

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quickthrower2
Depends what they spent it on

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Something1234
Probably hookers and blow for one of their parties...

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lamarpye
I stand corrected.

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Something1234
Hey at least the hookers benefited and they're part of the public.

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droobles
Not sure about Chicago, but my small hometown in Central IL is depressing to
visit, glad I left Illinois.

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matte_black
I wonder if VR gambling machines might provide a better gambling experience
for gamblers while also preventing places from filling up with junky and bulky
machines, and probably allow for more players too within the same amount of
space.

