The proposal that the state legalize off-track betting on horse races and the suggestions that pop up from time to time to allow gambling casinos in Chicago are generally explained by their proponents as a way to increase government revenue without raising taxes. In effect, they would be a voluntary tax paid by people who choose to gamble.
In that respect they are similar to the so-called sin taxes levied on cigarettes and liquor.
Opponents of the proposals inevitably question them on moral grounds. Should the state be in the business of encouraging gambling? Will the newly legalized gambling be taken over by criminal elements that now engage in those practices illegally?
For the most part, Du Page governments have over the years been successful in closing such morally objectional businesses as bookstores and movie houses specializing in pornography. A recent church campaign in Wheaton resulted in the withdrawal from public display of an array of ”skin”
magazines in local convenience food stores.
Some data in a new report by the Illinois Legislative Council on state taxes and expenditures shed statistical light on the major form of gambling now legal in the state–the Illinois State Lottery.
Few can argue that the lottery has been a financial windfall for Illinois. It has provided the state with more than $1 billion in revenue since it was created in 1974, and those profits have been increasing dramatically from slightly less than $28 million in 1979 to more than $377 million last year.
But where is the money coming from?
County-by-county data from the Legislative Council indicate that the more affluent areas of suburbia account for relatively less lottery revenue than the poorer areas of the metropolitan region.
Du Page County has a per-capita income of $13,487–highest in the state, according to 1980 census data. It contributed only $15 per capita in lottery profits, less than a third of Cook County`s per-capita lottery figure and below every other suburban county except largely rural McHenry.
Here`s how the metropolitan counties rank in per-capita income and lottery profits:
TABLE NAME::
Per Per Lottery
capita capita outlets
income lottery (agents)
revenue
Du Page $13,487 $15.00 336
Lake 13,102 28.47 268
Cook 12,570 46.26 4,000
McHenry 11,440 14.13 110
Kane 11,359 20.12 170
Will 10,242 21.09 187
State 11,572 31.33 —
Lake County`s high per-capita revenue can be attributed to the influx of players from nearby Wisconsin. The relatively high per-capita income for Cook County is counterbalanced by the low $6,993 income in Chicago, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of Cook`s population.
Because the state keeps 41 percent of all lottery money as profits, the per-capita revenue figures mean the ”average” Du Page resident last year spent $36 playing the games. In Kane County that figure would be close to $50, and in Cook it would be about $112.
If the lottery data are any indication, off-track betting would not appear to have much of a chance of financial success in Du Page and Kane Counties.
