“The city actually engaged the committee in advance of the selection as a measure of transparency in order to ensure that they are more informed of that process. “The City Council doesn’t actually ever make a selection for any procurement process that the city ever does,” Bennett said. Jennie Huang Bennett, the city’s chief financial officer, pushed back against the claim that Lightfoot went around a special committee that critics argue was formed to create an illusion of transparency.

Lightfoot has brushed aside critics accusing her of trying to fast track her preferred pick through the Council, and then on to the Illinois Gaming Board, which has the final say on issuing a casino license. The city’s cut from the casino is earmarked for nearly insolvent police and firefighter pension funds. The hedge fund owner whose East Coast corporation is poised to. Walter Burnett, whose 27th ward includes the final casino site, has thrown his full support behind the proposal, siding with Lightfoot’s claim that the alternative would be a property tax hike. chairman Soo Kim, center, speaks at a public meeting Thursday on a casino proposed for the River West neighborhood. Rivers Casino Des Plaines was the first casino in Illinois to have a land-based gaming floor and, through BetRivers, opened the state’s first retail sportsbook and was the first to offer mobile sports betting.Ald. Illinois is home to 10 casinos and a large video gaming market with more than 37,000 games at some 7,100 locations around the state. The city’s first casino, the precursor to a larger one expected to be built in River West, has more than 700 slots and 56 table games, and will eventually be open 24/7.

“With this proposed expansion, we will be able to offer our guests more of the entertainment and dining options they enjoy, additional gaming opportunities, and a long-desired poker room,” Rush Street CEO and co-founder Greg Carlin said in a statement. The second floor will feature a 24-table poker room a 10,000 square-foot ballroom for private events and live entertainment, and a slot machine gaming area. The first floor would include a new restaurant and an expanded gaming floor for slot machines and table games. Rush Street and Churchill Downs said the expansion would be constructed between the existing casino building and a recently enlarged parking garage on the north side of the property.

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