After being passed by the Illinois House of Representatives and the Senate and being sent to his office, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn is refusing to act on the bill due to a dispute with the General Assembly over pension reform in the state.
Last week, the Illinois General Assembly passed a sweeping bill that would not only have added to the number of “brick and mortar” casinos in the state but also would have opened up the fifth-largest state in the U. S. to online gaming and poker. In his State of the State address, Governor Quinn said that he was receptive to the idea of expanding gaming’s footprint in the state, but his actions with this bill on his desk are spurred by a sizeable crisis in the state that he feels needs to be addressed.
At the beginning of this year, the state’s unfunded pension liability totaled a monstrous $96 billion and dates back almost 70 years. While those covered by the Illinois pension program – which includes Illinois teachers, university professors, state troopers and other state employees – have been paying into the program, the state has either not fully contributed their share or haven’t paid into the program at all. Previous attempts at pension reform, which include shifting the burden of paying for the program to individual counties in the state, have been rejected by the Illinois General Assembly.
Although the proposed changes to gaming regulations would provide the state with approximately $150 million per year in revenues for the state, Governor Quinn feels that the legislation doesn’t go far enough, especially with the pension issue. The proposed legislation takes into account some of the legislators’ concerns with gaming, such as treatment of problem gamblers, but Quinn wants more from the legislation regarding the pension issue. Without the General Assembly addressing that issue, either through this new gaming bill or through other legislation, Quinn will not sign the bill into law.
The capital city’s main newspaper, the Springfield State Journal-Register, agrees with the Governor on that issue. Last month, the editorial staff of the paper changed their opinion on the expansion of gaming in Illinois – including the online element – but said the new revenues should be totally devoted to solving the pension crisis and other unpaid debts by the state. “It’s time for Illinois to shed its status as a deadbeat state,” the editors wrote.
Quinn also has some reservations with the online gaming and poker regulations in the new bill. Even with the online gaming part, Quinn has doubts about the impact that the new regulations would have on the state’s financial issues. He cited that online gaming is a “new industry” and that it may not be a good time to enter into that arena. Quinn also stated that the three states that have passed such regulations – Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey – have yet to have any players enter the scene because of what the Governor believes are “issues over regulation that still need to be addressed.”
On that subject, Quinn is also wrong. Although the three states have yet to actually put a product online to this point, it is expected by August that Delaware and New Jersey will be active with their full-blown online casino outlets. Nevada, which has had online poker only regulations up for the longest time period, is inching forward with its plans as potential players in the industry line up their licenses and test out their products fully before entering into what will be a highly combative field this year.
Illinois is joined by a few other states that stand on the precipice of entering into the online gaming and poker arena. California has new online poker legislation in its General Assembly, while Iowa continues to debate the issue within their state. New York has entertained the idea of opening up for online gaming, although it appears those efforts have died. If these three states, and others, currently considering passage of online gaming and poker regulations – along with the triumvirate that have already passed legislation – can join together for an interstate compact, it may signify a new dawn for online gaming and poker in the United States, even if most states stay out of the game.