Responding to constituents’ ongoing questions about new gaming rules, Lake County board member Sandra Hart recently stated that she believes that risks outweigh any potential benefits.
“As you may know, I remain vehemently opposed to video gaming as I believe the negative impact to the community far outweigh the revenue,” Hart said, referring to recent changes in county policy that now allow citizens to play video poker in unincorporated areas of Lake County.
According to Hart’s research, gaming in Waukegan, North Chicago and the unincorporated areas of Lake County resulted in massive losses to each community, respectively.
Since Sept. 2012, $4,484,533 was lost in video gaming machines in North Chicago. Adding Waukegan’s tally to that figure, the total grows to more than $33 million; and countywide in unincorporated zones, more than $15 million was lost.
In contrast, the county government has received only $750,000 in revenue -- kept in a separate fund -- and the board has approved expenditures for support programs, such as Text-a-Tip, Crisis Intervention Training for police officers and gambling counseling for constituents, with costs deducted from these earnings.
“The more machines added to a community, the greater the losses experienced,” Hart said. “The average 'loss' per machine hovers around $5,000 regardless of machines added.”
Hart clarified the derivation of her figures by defining “lost” as the number of dollars put into machines minus the dollars won from those machines. She has represented District 13, composed of Lake Bluff, Wildwood, unincorporated Grayslake as well as portions of North Chicago, Waukegan, Libertyville and Gurnee, since 2012.
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