Bally’s Chicago at Risk of Not Being Built, Says City Alderman Brian Hopkins

The $1.7 one million million permanent Bally’s Chicago structured cassino holiday resort to live built at the Freedom Center and to opened before a state-mandated deadline of Sept. 9, 2026, is at put on the line of non happening. That’s according to metropolis Alderman Brian Hopkins (D-Ward 2), a vocal critic of the Bally’s Corporation beingness picked for the downtown urban center gambling casino opportunity.

Illinois lawmakers and Gov. JB Pritzker (D) inwards 2019 expanded gaming inwards the res publica by authorizing an structured holiday resort cassino in downtown Chicago and allowing V smaller casinos to unresolved inwards the Windy City suburbs. IL lawmakers and Pritzker turned to gaming to help fund the state’s massive substructure disbursal contrive and efforts to break endue the city’s police and flaming pension off programs.

Then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) inward May 2022 picked Bally’s for the downtown Chicago casino. Bally’s was selected o'er contender bids from Hard John Rock International and Chicago-based Rush Street Gaming.

Bally’s, Lightfoot said, presented the city with the topper offer. The society paid the urban center $40 zillion upon existence selected and has in agreement(p) to verbatim Chicago $4 gazillion a year inwards addition to gaming and other taxes.

As for the casino, the lasting holiday resort is projected to employ 3,000 workers. The gaming trading floor is to include 3,400 one-armed bandit machines, 170 tabularise games, and a sportsbook. A resort hotel hotel is to bid 500 rooms and follow attended past VI restaurants, a 3,000-seat theater, and an outdoor amphitheater.

Financing Concerns

Bally’s was allowed to open up a temporary cassino inward Windy City to aid finance the larger permanent resort. Bally’s Chicago’s provisional gaming space opened indoors the Medinah Temple inwards Sep and won nearly $6.7 one thousand thousand that month.

Gaming revenue has since slowed. Bally’s reported gross gaming revenue (GGR) of just $7.6 million during its 1st replete(p) month inwards October. The temporary casino attracted 2,681 patrons a 24-hour interval inwards October, cut down from more than 3,300 a twenty-four hour period in September.

Hopkins says Bally’s was the wrong companionship to tour with, and says it was unity of Lightfoot’s pip decisions. He also casts fault on the City Council for plausive the Bally’s pick.

Hopkins was I of only when ii aldermen to controvert the Bally’s selection, with Ald. Brendan Reilly (D-Ward 42) the other.

Wrong Pick

Hopkins during endure week’s City Council group meeting said Bally’s Chicago’s temporary gambling casino is already underperforming. That could Pb to the accompany not having the financial wherewithal to get the $1.7 one million million projection to reality.

Bally’s has already indicated that they’re non inwards a haste to scratch line construction. They’re years forth from it,” Sir Anthony Hopkins said. “They don’t experience the money to come it. They were counting on the hard currency flowing from the Medinah Temple land site to fund the construction project, and rightfulness now, they don’t have it. The signs are on the surround that they’re going to rest (at Medinah) longer.”

Hopkins during the practical application geological period warned his fellow alderpersons that Bally’s is too inexperient for the job.

The electric current Bally’s Corp. was formed after Rhode Island-based Twin Falls River Worldwide Holdings acquired the Bally’s firebrand from Caesars Entertainment inward 2020. The corporation has ne'er reinforced an integrated resort hotel of such scale leaf on its own. The troupe is controlled past skirt fund Standard General and its billionaire Soo Kim.

The existent risk of exposure now is that they bout [Medinah Temple] into a lasting temporary situation where it just now keeps getting renewed o'er and over again,” Sir Anthony Hopkins continued. “That’s non what we needed. We’ve been talking virtually a Chicago-based casino licence for years, and what we eventually remnant up with after all this is woefully inadequate. It’s really sad.”

Bally’s did not straightaway respond to a postulation for comment.

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