Chicago Sun-Times: Time to place your bets for Daley vs. Blago

Let's say you're a Chicago resident and you woke up on this Wednesday morning in the mood to make a bet or two. What a shame we don't have casino gambling in the city. Wouldn't it be great if you could hop on the CTA or take a quick cab ride to a casino within the Chicago city limits? Some neon-splashed palace with a name like "Daley's Double Horseshoe Casino"? (I can see the marquee now, with "LOUIE ANDERSON" and "ULTIMATE KICKBOXING CHAMPIONSHIPS" in gigantic letters. Let's get comped!)

The casino bill is going through committees and could reach the Senate floor this week -- but Sen. Emil Jones (D-Chicago), et al., will need a veto-defeating percentage of votes, because we know that in this case, Blago won't play keno. Our guv says he doesn't want the Land of Lincoln to become "the Land of Wayne Newton."

So much for "Danke Schoen" becoming the official state song.

In typically priceless fashion, Daley claimed Blago's stance didn't put the tiniest dent in Daley's recent fun in Paris.

"I wasn't jumping up and down on my bed in Paris," said the mayor, and try to spend the rest of the day getting rid of that visual. "I was not soaking in a bottle of champagne.... I was not crying."

Right. That's what Carrie Bradshaw did in Paris when she realized she'd hooked up with the wrong guy.

Maybe Daley's not mad, but he sure seems perturbed and perplexed by Gov. Blago's opposition. As Daley sees it, what's good enough for Waukegan and Rockford is good enough for Chicago -- and he's once again in love with the idea of gambling in our city.

Nice of him to be concerned about those of us who risk a buck or two every now and then. Of course, we already have myriad gambling options waiting for us.

By my count, there are at least 50 ways to lose my money.

Place your bets

I'm typing this from my office in the Sun-Times Building on Wabash Avenue. Without getting up, I have several gambling possibilities at my fingertips. I can switch over to the Internet and log onto a gambling site such as superbook.com, which offers wagers on today's baseball games, the NBA playoffs, the Belmont Stakes and "futures" bets, e.g., the White Sox at 30-1 to win the World Series, and President Bush is a slight favorite to win re-election. The site also has an online casino where you can play craps, blackjack, roulette and video poker.

Technically, such wagering is illegal. Realistically, you're never going to get busted.

When I exit the Sun-Times Building, I'm a five-minute walk from a half-dozen convenience stores selling lottery tickets. I'm also five minutes away from the OTB on State Street -- or if I want to bet the ponies in person, I can take a drive to Arlington Park.

As for casino gambling, it's less than 20 miles away, at the Horseshoe Casino on beautiful Casino Center Drive in Hammond, Ind.

And if I'm in the mood for video poker, there's a tavern or two that's even closer.

Oh wait. Video poker is against the law. If you put a couple of machines in your bar and you split the profits with a Christopher Moltisanti type, that's a serious crime and you're a bad person.

But if you want to be the proprietor of a megamillion-dollar casino with video poker and lots of other games of chance, that makes you a mayor.

Gambling with our image

Of course, most of the gambling options outlined above don't benefit the city of Chicago. The money goes elsewhere. Daley is tired of it, and he wants a big slice of the pie.

"You don't think we have struggling communities in the city of Chicago?" said the mayor. "Do you think we don't have struggling schools? I drive on the South Side, the West Side or the North Side. Do you really believe we don't have struggling communities?"

And do you, Mr. Mayor, really believe that casino gambling is going to resuscitate the struggling schools and communities? Can't wait to see that plan.

A mayor who admits he needs casino gambling is a mayor who admits he's running out of ideas. Casinos are the last resort of cities like Detroit and Atlantic City -- and the results have been mixed, at best. (From an extensive study on gambling in Atlantic City, by Martha K. Nelson: "Although casino gambling in Atlantic City has created thousands of jobs and generated billions of dollars in tax revenues, it has done little to relieve the city's high level of unemployment, aid the city's small businesses, or revitalize the city's most distressed neighborhoods.")

We're supposed to be big league. We're supposed to be world class. We're not supposed to be depending on slot machines to get us through the day.

And try to find a study that doesn't find that slots attract minorities, the poor and the uneducated. Why not just set up city- sanctioned three-card monte kiosks in the neighborhoods?

Building a casino is an admission that we're not really the world- class city we claim to be. The cards are on the table, and I'm betting on Blago to win this showdown.

E-mail: rroeper@suntimes.com