BLOOMINGTON — Like neighboring Normal, Bloomington will allow its bars, restaurants, fraternal organizations, veterans groups, and truck stops to operate video gambling machines when the Illinois Gaming Board establishes a central communication system for those machines.

Currently, the Illinois Gaming Board is testing five random sites to make sure the central communication system connects correctly. If the testing is successful, people could begin gambling in bars, restaurants, fraternal organizations, veterans groups, and truck stops throughout Illinois sometime around Labor Day.

The central communication system will allow the Illinois Gaming Board to monitor cash flows and correctly split up profits. Municipalities that allow the operation of video gambling machines will receive 5 percent of the net proceeds that are generated from the machines in their district. Twenty-five percent of the net proceeds will go to the state, 35 percent will go to the owner of the establishment that operates the machines and the remaining 35 percent will go to the video machine gaming machine operator.
City gambling revenues “could bring in as low as $200,000 to as high as $600,000” a year, said Bloomington Assistant City Attorney George Boyle.
“It’s going to go to the city’s general fund and from there it will be allocated,” said Boyle.
Illinois lawmakers legalized video gambling for bars, restaurants, fraternal organizations, veterans groups and truck stops in 2009 as a way to generate revenue for the state to help pay for road and bridge construction projects. The long regulation process has prevented any machines from operating.
“There’s four different types of establishments that can have video gaming and it’s based on the Illinois Video Gaming Act, which was passed and signed by the governor in July of 2009,” said Boyle. “In that act there was a provision where different municipalities could affirmatively say that they don’t want video gambling, but it wasn’t really interpreted until this April by the Illinois Gaming Board. They interpreted that if there were ordinances on the books that would’ve prevented that type of gambling prior to the act, the act itself wouldn’t change or supersede those types of ordinances.
“What the Council directed us to do was to draw an ordinance that would clearly state that video gaming, within the meaning of the Video Gaming Act, was allowed in Bloomington.”
The Bloomington City Council voted 8-1 on July 23 to change the city’s current gambling and liquor ordinances to allow video gambling machines. They estimated that around 120 establishments in the city could apply for a license for the operation of video gambling machines. The Illinois Gaming Board has received over 1,000 applications for licenses.
Between 50,000 and 75,000 machines are expected to be operating in bars, restaurants, fraternal organizations, veterans groups and truck stops in Illinois within the next year. Those machines are expected to generate $375 million in state tax dollars annually to help fund a $31 billion capital construction plan approved by state legislators.
According to the Illinois Video Gaming Act, each establishment can have a maximum of five payout machines. The video gambling machine area must be separated from the rest of the establishment and restricted to those 21 and older.
Five states besides Illinois have legalized video gambling, including West Virginia, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota and Louisiana.