Illinois Gaming Board gives initial approvals for temporary casino at Medinah Temple

State playing regulators on Thursday gave its first approvals towards the opening of a long-debated Chicago on line casino, voting in favor of licenses for Medinah Temple to function the non permanent house of a playing corridor that developer Bally’s hopes to open by June.

Whether or not that bold timeline could be met stays unsure, because the Illinois Gaming Board nonetheless is required to analyze and approve everybody concerned within the undertaking, from high buyers to subcontractors concerned within the development.

The final word plan is for Bally’s to open a everlasting on line casino west of the Chicago River on the location of the Chicago Tribune’s Freedom Middle printing plant by 2026.

The board voted 3-0 to approve provider licenses for 2 company entities owned by actual property developer Albert Friedman to function Bally’s landlord on the century-old Shriner’s amphitheater, which most just lately housed a Bloomingdale’s Residence Retailer.

The choice to accommodate the non permanent on line casino on the River North landmark, which was not Bally’s preliminary alternative, has been the supply of some controversy. Critics have pointed to a $6,000 contribution Friedman made to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s marketing campaign about two months earlier than Bally’s signed a letter of intent, on the metropolis’s urging, to make use of Medinah Temple.

The marketing campaign contribution was disclosed to the Gaming Board on the Medinah license purposes.

Thursday’s vote is simply an preliminary public step in a course of that might take months or years to finish.

Since Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a measure into regulation in 2019 vastly increasing playing in Illinois, solely certainly one of six newly approved casinos has begun operations — Arduous Rock On line casino Rockford, which opened at a brief web site in November 2021, almost two years after its software was submitted to playing regulators.

Bally’s filed its software with the state for a Chicago on line casino in August.

Throughout Thursday’s assembly, Gaming Board Administrator Marcus Fruchter detailed the prolonged investigation course of underway on the Gaming Board and declined to say when a listening to could be held on Bally’s “preliminary suitability” for a on line casino license, which is required earlier than development can begin.

Fruchter stated he wouldn’t “characterize the investigation aside from to say it’s transferring ahead and that Bally’s is cooperating with IGB workers.”

“We’ll proceed to stick to the established course of and comply with the info and the regulation wherever they lead us,” he stated.

dpetrella@chicagotribune.com