Illinois Online Gambling Bill Will Wait Until Fall at Earliest

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Saturday, June 22nd, 2013 | Written by Lucy Brown

The slight hope that Illinois would move on the issue of regulated online gambling expired this week, leaving proponents to wait until fall – at the earliest – for online gambling legislation to be introduced in Springfield.

Special session for pension raised potential of gambling bills

The spring session of the Illinois legislature wrapped up at the end of May. But with the state’s pension issues growing by the day – and resulting in a credit downgrade that increased the cost the state faces to borrow additional money – Illinois Governor Pat Quinn called lawmakers back to the capital for a special session to address pension reform.

That special session was held last Thursday, June 20th.

The point of the session was to craft a compromise for the pension issue, but observers believed that gambling could also potentially have been addressed during the special session.

Why gambling, an issue so apparently disconnected from pension reform? Understanding that issue requires a brief lesson in Illinois politics. Powerful members of the state’s House and Senate have been pushing for gambling expansion – both land-based and online gambling – for several years now. But Gov. Quinn has made it clear that he won’t sign off on any such expansion of gambling until the state’s epic pension worries are resolved.

So, the logic went, if a solution was found for the pension mess during the special session, it was quite likely that gambling, particularly land-based gambling expansion, would be a part of the negotiating mix.

Little progress on any issues during special session

That logic may well have been sound, but it was rendered completely moot by a special session that produced little to justify the several thousand dollars it cost Illinois taxpayers. There was no pension reform to be had, nor was there much in the way of any progress toward pension reform, at least from an external point of view.

As a result of that lack of progress on the pension front, gambling expansion also failed to move forward.

And legislators who want to see expanded gambling in the state of Illinois were left exactly where they were when the 2013 session began: facing an insurmountable obstacle of a governor who has time and time again made it clear that he will veto gambling expansion bills of any nature until lawmakers craft a serious and effective solution to the unfunded pension problems that have crippled the state’s finances for much of the last two decades.

Gambling must now wait until fall 2013

Barring some additional special session – an event with a near-zero probability of occurrence thanks to Thursday’s non-productive morass – Illinois lawmakers won’t be coming back to work until the fall of 2013.

And even when they do return, there will be precious little time to both craft a pension solution and reach an agreement on gambling expansion. In fact, lawmakers will be in session for a mere 6 days during the fall part of the 2013 session, a number that does not bode well for those hoping to see expanded gambling in Illinois.

Online gambling could be in even worse shape than land-based expansion, as land-based bills have been in circulation for years and have the support of some of Illinois’ most powerful politicians. Online gambling, by contrast, has the backing of some heavy hitters, but remains an unproven concept in the eyes of both the Governor and much of the Illinois House and Senate.