Illinois green lights video gambling beginning today

Illinois-Gaming-Board-fuckup-delays-video-gambling-machines-for-4-months

Illinois-Gaming-Board-fuckup-delays-video-gambling-machines-for-4-monthsIt took more than three years of negotiations, delays, and an inordinate number of obstacles. But finally, video gambling has been legalized in the state of Illinois.

The Illinois Gaming Board has officially green lighted video gambling in the state and chairman Aaron Jaffe confirmed to the Chicago Tribune as much. With the legalizing of video gambling, an estimated 280 machines spread across 70 establishments are set to go live in the coming days.

The approval sure didn’t come easy and it took a lot of amendments before an approval was meted down. It was in May 2009 when the Illinois General Assembly first approved the measure to allow as many as five video poker machines to be installed in particular establishments, including truck stops, fraternal organizations and establishments that hold a liquor license.

But lengthy reviews of all the license applications filed by manufacturers, distributors, and business establishments that would use the games caused a longer than usual delay in the implementation of the bill. All this was compounded by a lack of able bodied staff at the gaming board to process and investigate all of the applications that were filed. Moreover, the state also had a lot of difficulty finding the right and capable central computer system that can monitor all the video gambling machines throughout the state.

But now that everything’s been ironed out and video gambling has been green lighted, a lot of business owners have already confirmed that the video gambling machines in their establishments are already up and running and are currently being used by customers.

Understandably, this has been a long time coming for business owners in the state that were eligible to have these machines on their stores. But now that everything has come to pass and all systems are go, it’s certainly better late than never.