Joliet and Aurora officials are counting on a big bonanza when riverboat gambling begins next year and at the same time are hoping that Chicago continues to maintain its anti-gambling posture.
Because Mayor Richard Daley and Gov. Jim Edgar openly oppose any new gambling as a source of increased tax revenues, millions of dollars will be going out of Chicago and Cook County and into Will and Kane Counties, where the floating casinos will be docked.
”As long as Chicago remains against any legalized gambling, it`s going to help us,” Joliet Mayor Art Schultz said Tuesday. ”All we want is a piece of the Chicago market.”
And if gambling supporters in Wisconsin have their way, the legislature there could move this fall to permit riverboats on Lake Michigan, probably in the Milwaukee area. Chicago`s North Shore and northwest suburbs would then become a prime market for the gambling boats.
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A major target of Joliet and Aurora`s riverboats will be Chicago`s tourism and convention trade, which last year numbered more than 6.1 million visitors, according to a consultant`s report studied last week by the Illinois Gaming Board. The gambling boats will be plying the Des Plaines and Fox Rivers about an hour`s drive from downtown Chicago. What effect this would have on Chicago`s tourist market isn`t known yet.
”I think the riverboats will be an added amenity for tourists,” said Mel Patla, marketing head of the Chicago Convention and Visitors Bureau. ”But if it should start affecting hotel attendance in Chicago, then we`d have a problem.”
However, if floating casinos should ever be allowed on Lake Michigan they would have a major impact on the Joliet and Aurora boats, according to the report prepared by McGhie Consultants of Reno. Currently, Illinois law prohibits the gambling boats in Cook County or on Lake Michigan.
The study specifically notes that cruise-ship gambling on Lake Michigan in Chicago would have a major effect on the Joliet and Aurora riverboats.
Ald. Edward Burke (14th) predicted that it would be just a matter of time before the gambling boats were on Lake Michigan. ”The boats are having excellent results in Iowa, with tourism up and new businesses going where the boats are,” he said. ”If Chicago had done something along these lines 10 years ago, we`d be in an excellent position today.”
But don`t look for Burke to spearhead any casino effort for Chicago as he did 10 years ago. ”It would be foolhardy for me to lead any movement today since the state`s attorney, the speaker of the House, the mayor, and the governor have all come out against any new gambling.”
The McGhie report was ordered by the Pratt Hotel Corp. as part of a presentation made to the Illinois Gaming Board last week in its successful bid for a riverboat gambling license on the Fox River in Aurora. The hotel chain also owns the Sands Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.
Other licenses approved by the board were for companies operating on the Des Plaines River in downtown Joliet and 3 miles downstream near Channahon.
McGhie estimated that 8.7 million potential gamblers live within 100 miles of the three communities and that they could be expected to wager up to $885 million a year.
The consultant projects that an Illinois gambler will lose an average of between $92 and $102 on each no-betting-limit cruise. Iowa, which has a $200 betting limit, is averaging a $30 loss for each passenger who gambles on its five riverboats.
Officials estimate that half of the 650,000 people who have gone to Iowa to gamble between April 1 and June 30 came from the Chicago area and have helped contribute $2.3 million in new tax money to that state.
Some 1.8 million passengers are expected during the first year of operation on the boats cruising the Des Plaines River. An additional 524,000 passengers are expected to gamble on the Aurora riverboat.
The report pointed out that the Chicago area has a much stronger tourist market and a larger immediate market than the Iowa riverboats.