After Bally’s recently opened a temporary casino in Chicago and with plans for an even larger, billion dollar-plus gambling location in the city, the process that the company went through to make all that happen is now under review.
City alderman Brian Hopkins recently confirmed to Crain’s Chicago that local and federal officials are looking into the process after complaints from other bidders for the Illinois casino license. The reviews include an investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. City Inspector General Deborah Witzburg is also looking into the process, but has yet to comment on the situation.
“Bally’s faced controversy earlier when it was allowed to alter the terms of its financial deal with minority investors after inserting a clause that could buy out minority shares at a non-negotiated price post-casino opening,” Crain’s noted. “Reports also revealed discrepancies in the fees charged to different bidders and conflicts of interest with city consultants evaluating financial prospects.”
Investigations Believed to be Underway
Despite some of those concerns, the project still passed the city council. Bally’s proposed a $1.7 billion casino at Freedom Center in the River West area near the Chicago River. The casino will include 3,400 slot machines, 170 table games, a 500-room hotel, a 3,000-seat entertainment venue, six restaurants, food court, and more.
Bally’s expects to start construction next year and complete the project by 2025 or 2026. The company opened a temporary 34,000-square-foot casino in October with 800 slots and 56 table games.
Adding a casino inside the city was a major goal for former mayor Lori Lightfoot. However, the agreement with Bally’s now faces scrutiny, despite Bally’s officials noting that the company hasn’t been notified of any investigations, according to media reports.
But Crain’s reports that an investigation began months ago. Some earlier critics of the casino plans argued that the bidding process wasn’t fully transparent. Some have charged that city consultants also held conflict of interests in the matter.
Lightfoot and her team have argued that any complaints in the process were from disgruntled bidders who didn’t win the license and vocal opponents of casino plans for the Windy City. Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar, who worked with Lightfoot and led the casino bidding process told Crain’s that “some casino industry actors and their allies who lost out on the bid who have spent the following years planting false rumors and innuendo in the media.”
Another Casino Also Opens in Chicago Suburb of Aurora
The new casino won’t be without competition. There are already several casinos on the outskirts of the city as well as other properties in nearby Indiana. Another one of those casinos was officially unveiled last week as local officials broke ground on a new Hollywood Casino in the city of Aurora.
The Penn Entertainment facility is located adjacent to the Chicago Premium Outlets venue near Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway. The new property will replace the current Hollywood, which has been located on the Fox River in downtown Aurora since opening in 1993. The casino will soon be in the new location in an upgraded facility.
The new $360 million project will include 1,200 slots and table games, a 200-room hotel, 12,000-square-foot event center for meetings and conferences, and a 1,700-space parking area. Media reports noted a much different facility than the Bally’s project planned for Chicacgo.
“Renderings show a sleek, low-level casino and hotel, which is in stark contrast to Bally’s plans for a skyscraper-like hotel in Chicago,” Axios notes. “Earlier this year, Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey implored the mayor to help reshape the Bally’s plan, writing that the architectural design for the Chicago casino was more suited for a complex off the highway. This new Aurora concept may be off the highway, but it’s less like the traditional casino/hotel structures we’ve seen in the area in the past.”
The project is expected to be completed in 2025, before the Chicago Bally’s project. City officials have approved giving Penn the land for the project and issuing $50 million in bonds. The current Hollywood will remain open until the new casino opens.
Planning for the new project has been underway since 2019 and is expected to produce 700 jobs, twice as many as at the current casino. This came after Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Gaming Expansion Law that permitted up to six new casinos in the state.
The law allowed that these casinos no longer had to be riverboats or to be built on land – and located away from a river for the first time. Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin is pleased to finally see one of those projects get started.
“We are here today because we decided to bet on ourselves,” Irvin said. “Others are believing in Aurora because we believed in ourselves.”
