{"id":542191,"date":"2010-04-23T17:08:27","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T21:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01348016d84c970c"},"modified":"2010-04-23T17:08:27","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T21:08:27","slug":"daley-suggests-people-should-decide-fate-of-video-gambling-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/542191","title":{"rendered":"Daley suggests people should decide fate of video gambling in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Posted by John Byrne and Hal Dardick<\/em> at 4:05 p.m.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>As backers of video gambling gear up a push to allow the machines in Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley today said the issue should be decided by the voters.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Legalized video gambling is a primary funding mechanism for a $31 billion statewide construction program approved last year. But many towns and counties, responding to groups who stress the risks of gambling addiction, have voted to ban it. Chicago, which has long had a ban on video gambling, would have to opt-in for the machines to be allowed.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>&quot;It&#8217;s not me, it will be the people who decide this,\u201d Daley told reporters. \u201cIf you put it on the ballot, you&#8217;ll find out what the people want.&quot;<br \/>\n&quot;You do your surveys and find out,&quot; Daley added when asked if he thinks Chicagoans would support the measure. &quot;One thing they don&#8217;t want, they don&#8217;t want their taxes increased, you know that.&quot;<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>In Chicago, it&#8217;s estimated that allowing video gambling could generate $30 million a year for the city budget, based on the local 5 percent take.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>A coalition of businesses and unions that would benefit from the public works projects video gambling would fund said the decision should be left to the City Council, as envisioned under state law.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Greg Goldner, a mayoral ally working for Back to Work Illinois, the pro-video gambling group, said the public can express its views through elected representatives, as envisioned by the General Assembly.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br>Back to Work has been lobbying aldermen, who have yet to schedule hearings on the issue.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>&quot;A lot of cities are banning it,\u201d Daley noted. \u201cThey say, &#8216;We don&#8217;t want the video poker,&#8217; and they still get state funding, regardless if you have it or not.&quot; <br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>Gov. Pat Quinn said the construction program is not reliant on Chicago making the machines legal, as some have suggested.<br \/><\/br>\u00a0<br \/><\/br>&quot;The video gaming is maybe 20 or 25 percent of the overall financing,&quot; Quinn said, referring to the construction bill. &quot;We have ample financing for this year, next year and several years to come.&quot;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Posted by John Byrne and Hal Dardick at 4:05 p.m.As backers of video gambling gear up a push to allow the machines in Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley today said the issue should be decided by the voters.Legalized video gambling is a primary funding mechanism for a $31 billion statewide construction program approved last year. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}