Here come the Indiana casino boats.
Voters in Northwest Indiana served notice Tuesday that they aren’t about to be left behind, like Chicago, in the rollout of the gaming industry across the Upper Midwest.
Two out of three referendum voters in Hammond and East Chicago said, “Bring on the boats.” So did a majority in La Porte County. Voters in Gary made the decision two years ago, well before the Indiana legislature last summer authorized five licenses for Lake Michigan gambling boats. Within two years the southern shore of the lake very likely will be ringed by gilded tax-generators from Michigan City to the Illinois line.
In effect, the City of Chicago, despite its crying need for the jobs and tax dollars gaming could bring, will be surrounded on all sides by legalized gambling. Like a bypass on the interstate, the betting belt will arc from northwest Indiana through Joliet, Aurora, Elgin and up to the Indian reservations of Wisconsin.
Chicago, the one city in the region with the airport and hotel capacity to become a national destination for gaming tourism, becomes the hole in the doughnut.
And why?
Because the Illinois legislature has chosen to make casino gambling a political spoil rather than a tool for large-scale economic development. Every day it becomes more apparent that Downstate and suburban legislators are stalling Chicago’s entry, not because of some moral qualm, but to protect their own riverboats from big-league competition. Why else would a lobbyist for a Joliet casino be handing out campaign contributions right under the capital rotunda?
And yet the stand-patters mutter, as they stash their cash, that sinful Chicago isn’t ready for legalized gambling. They hide behind the doubts of Gov. Jim Edgar, whose friends have gambling interests elsewhere, and of certain vocal churchmen who want the city to spend more on the poor though they have no idea where the money is to be found.
It’s the big joke in Springfield. No wonder they’re laughing so hard in Indianapolis.
