Today's news: Waukegan to renew bid for 10th casino license.
Tomorrow's news, via the crystal ball of The Swami: Waukegan will be awarded the vacant casino license by the Illinois Gaming Board ... hmmm, let us see ... sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
This forecast is based on, well, the visions seen in the crystal ball. But also on a logical process of eliminating the competition.
Rosemont won't get the license for the same reason it's up for grabs four years after Rosemont was (almost) awarded the license -- everyone from unpopular Gov. Rod Blagojevich to your next U.S. Senator from Illinois, Lisa Madigan, doesn't want Rosemont to get it. If they did, slot jockeys would be bleeding nickels on River Road as of this moment.
Country Club Hills, Summit and everyone else south of the Ike/Ron Reagan won't get a casino for five reasons -- Aurora, East Chicago, Gary, Hammond and Joliet, which between them have seven casinos to serve the Chicago Southland, as they call it down there.
Communities outside the Chicago metropolitan area? Don't even come to the table. The last time the license went up for auction, three companies put up a total of $1.5 billion worth of bids to put a casino north of I-80 and east of the Tri-State. The state is banking on more of the same action.
This brings us to Des Plaines, the sleeper candidate that, technically, finished ahead of Waukegan in the Great Casino License Fiasco of 2004. What will put Waukegan ahead this time around? Two things: First and foremost, Illinois has been leaking gamers into Milwaukee, and the Prairie State power brokers want this to stop.
And two, because this 11-year melodrama -- complete with court battles and multi-million-dollar auctions and allegations of mob ties -- has to have a more exciting ending than Des Plaines.
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