NEW CASINO

[mammajamma]

Chicago has a new casino opening soon, but it's only 44,000 sq ft with a little over 1,000 machines. I think they missed the boat on revenues , especially since it's located between Chicago and O'Hare Field. Named the Rivers Casino. i think.

[Tedlark]

  The casino is called the Rivers and it's owned by the same people that own the Rivers casino in PA. There are some minority owners involved in the Chicago casino but Neil Blum is the main guy.    Chicago Rivers has their public opening scheduled for July 18 2011, next Monday, and they have a pre-opening scheduled for the day before that is for invited guests only. The casino is located approximately 10 minutes from O'Hare Airport which means its approximately 30 - 45 minutes west of downtown Chicago depending on traffic.    The casino, by Illinois law, can only have a total of 1,200 gaming positions. When you consider that a craps table as having 14 positions, blackjack tables have 6 positions, etc. then that only leaves a limited number of positions for machine play. I don't think that poker rooms count in the gaming positions total number.   I know that it will draw from several of the other northern illinois casinos such as Grand Victoria in Elgin, Hollywood in Aurora, and to a lesser extent Hollywood and Harrahs in Joliet. Nothing will affect the northwest Indiana boats until a casino is placed closer to downtown Chicago and that will still be several years away. So for now Illinois is operating with a total of 10 casinos in the state and, again, this number of 10 is also by state law. The Illinois state lawmakers recently passed a huge expansion of Illinoios gaming but it is doubtful that the current Governor will sign the bill in the form it was passed in the House and Senate. He has been quoted as saying that he: "doesn't want to turn Illinois into the Las Vegas of the midwest."     There was a story on the late news tonight and it was reported that the Chairman of the Illinois Gambling Board stated he was against the new casino bill and that the Governor was waiting to here something from the Gaming Board before he made up his mind.