McCarthy, who was fired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel as police superintendent in late 2015, said during an interview that aired this weekend on WBBM-AM’s “At Issue” program that an airport casino would be a big money-earner for the city while cutting down on many of the societal problems that can accompany legalized gambling.
“The issue with a casino in the city, my understanding, was all of the problems it causes in the community. How about we put a casino in O’Hare Airport where now it’s for travelers coming through and it’s not going to affect the community, and anybody who goes there has to go through TSA?” McCarthy said.
“That’s going to eliminate the issue of the downside of not being able to control what happens, you know, whether it’s organized crime, prostitution, narcotics or whatever it is and, at the same time, that’s going to generate revenue,” he said.
“How many people come through O’Hare and have layovers, and have to sit around for hours and hours and hours?” he said during the interview with Craig Dellimore. “If they’re sitting at a blackjack table, there’s going to be revenue generated.”
A Chicago-based casino has been a dream of various mayors, Emanuel among them. And his administration has lobbied in the past for the flexibility to place some of a city casino’s gambling positions — typically slot machines — at O'Hare International and Midway airports.
But gambling expansion of any kind has long been a tough sell in Springfield, where existing casino owners always push hard against proposals for new ones. A city casino could draw gamblers from the suburbs, where betting revenue has been dropping for years.
McCarthy mentioned the casino construction as a logical extension of Emanuel’s massive O’Hare expansion projects, big parts of which aldermen approved last week.
Source: GMB / Chicago Tribune
