In terms of big, international breaking news of interest to gambling and casinos, one might not think that the upcoming vote that is scheduled to take place in East Dundee, Illinois is of any importance. To some extent that what be a correct presumption. However, the upcoming vote in East Dundee as to whether or not the town should ban video gambling is a topic that concerns many states and localities across the US. The reason is simple: this type of betting, be it through video gambling machines or old-fashioned bingo parlors, brings in a lot of revenue to these areas. This revenue is often the only thing that is keeping a small, local town above water in terms of its finances. Losing this revenue, for any reason, would bring hardship.
In the case of East Dundee, the current rule is that video gambling is banned. The upcoming vote will determine if the town should allow video gambling, its revenues would increase. The vote is being sponsored by the village’s board committee, and local merchants have already suggested that terminating the ban would be good business for the local area as well as for their respective businesses.
According to reports submitted by local officials, allowing video gambling in the village could generate $100,000 to $250,000. As one might imagine, this is much needed revenue for a small town these days. It was also reported that many of the surrounding towns already have instituted video gaming in their areas and this is causing local East Dundee residents to go those locales to play. Local business owners who would host video gaming machines in their establishments want to keep local residents in town instead of having them travel to other out-of-town businesses. For many of these business owners it just a simple matter of trying to stay in business.
In order to pass, the measure requires four “yes” votes but as of this writing that number does not seem possible. Four members of committee have already said that they prefer to keep the ban in place. One trustee is undecided and the others are not committed yet one way or the other.
A petition that was circulated by local merchants in support of removing the ban gained 650 signatures, which is a lot considering the size of the village. This was done in order to get the issue placed on a November ballot as a referendum, but the merchants missed the deadline for filing and the matter must now be resolved by the village committee. That outcome is still very uncertain. What is not uncertain is that keeping the ban will hurt local businesses and deny the village of much needed revenue.
What may be of interest to many reading this article is that local communities all over the US are actively seeking ways to bring in more revenue. Gaming revenues are a proven means of doing exactly that and as such it is expected that more and more communities will reassess their standing on legalized gaming in the areas.