A riverboat casino would dock in Lake County and the south suburbs under a plan being crafted by the state lawmaker who penned Illinois' original gaming legislation.

Sen. Denny Jacobs, chairman of the Senate gaming committee, wants to boost the number of state gambling licenses from 10 to 12, specifically docking one floating casino in a suburb between Interstate 57 and the Bishop Ford Freeway.

"The south suburban location is important to the legislation, number one to satisfy the legislators who asked for it there and also to siphon off some of the exodus of revenue going to Indiana boats," said the East Moline Democrat.

The 12th proposed riverboat gambling license would be steered to Lake County, Jacobs said.

The new licenses would be part of a massive gambling expansion designed to generate cash to solve the state's budget crisis. Another lawmaker, Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, put forth a collection of bills to allow a casino in Chicago, put slot machines at race tracks and legalize video poker in corner bars. Together, the proposals would change the face of gambling in Illinois.

Before Jacobs puts his ideas into writing and brings them to the Senate, he plans to review the mammoth gambling bill introduced Wednesday by Lang, who's the House gaming committee chairman.

Lang's proposals are wide ranging. He calls for:

• Creating a gaming license with 4,000 gaming positions specifically for Chicago.
• Increasing the number of gaming positions from 1,200 to 2,000 allowed for the 10 existing licenses.
• Permitting a combined 3,200 slot machines at the state's five horse racing tracks.



• Legalizing video poker machines at any business with a liquor license.

Lang expects his proposal would generate as much as $2.6 billion next year and $1.9 billion in the following years.

Lang would not create a new casino license specifically for the south suburbs or Lake County, or promise one for those areas.

Jacobs said he will either introduce a bill of his own or ask Lang to amend his bill to include the two additional casino licenses, which he said are necessary to bring in much needed revenue this year.

"This is about how we can get more money immediately. Under the Lou Lang proposal it will take six months before we start getting revenue. (By selling) the two additional licenses, we will bring in $1.4 billion in revenue the first year," Jacobs said.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has said in the past he's against gambling expansion. But the state's money problems may force the issue. "It would be irresponsible to simply reject their ideas without listening to them in the context of a $5 billion budget deficit that I inherited as governor and that the people of our state have to get a handle on," said Blagojevich during a news conference in Chicago.

Jacobs said the additional licenses could nearly triple Blagojevich'sprojected $500 million increase in gaming revenue included in the state's current budget to $1.4 billion. "This is about revenues. It's not really about gaming," Jacobs said. "Gov. Blagojevich has indicated he does not want to increase the income tax or sales tax. Even though gambling is a tax, it's a willing tax and when we put licenses out for competitive bid it will bring immediate dollars."

Blagojevich has specifically said he doesn't support increasing the number of state gambling licenses, and that has Democratic lawmakers concerned. "The governor is not for expansion of gaming licenses. So, there's not much to say about it until the governor supports it. Nobody wants to walk the plank for bills that will be vetoed," House Speaker Michael Madigan's spokesman Steve Brown said.

Indeed, the fight over these gambling proposals promises to be intense. Riverboats and horse tracks argue giving slots to one will hurt business at the other, and both would prefer to have no state limits on slots at their businesses.

Representatives from both groups praised Lang for getting debate started and said they would study his proposals.

Gambling opponents argue these measures would exacerbate the costly problems of addicts."You're going to have a huge problem of addiction," said Anita Bedell, executive director of Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction. "There's going to be a huge cost to the taxpayers from all over the state."