* This is from yesterday’s coverage of Gov. Pat Quinn’s gaming expansion press conference…

The five new ones would operate in Chicago, South Cook County, North Suburban Lake County, Rockford and Danville. The governor said the ultimate locations should be determined by the Illinois Gaming Board, not by the General Assembly.

As a commenter pointed out last night, how can the governor insist that the Gaming Board should be the one to pick all the new locations and in the same breath say he wants to specifically name Danville and Rockford in the expansion legislation? And, of course, he’s OK with naming Chicago in the bill, too. There was no specification of the location of the south suburban casino, other than it had to be in the south suburbs, so there’d be no change if a Quinn-approved bill actually became law.

That just leaves the proposed Park City casino in Lake County, which is specified in the bill. Is the governor being hypocritical here? Or, maybe he’s just taking a not so subtle shot at Sen. Terry Link, who has been tied to a potential Park City casino owner. I’m betting he’s taking the shot while hoping nobody notices the hypocrisy.

* The Illinois Radio Network has a story about Gov. Quinn’s top priorities for the veto session. Number one is killing the legislative scholarship program, two is addressing the Smart Grid issue and here’s number three…

Quinn said lawmakers must come up with a gambling expansion plan. While there is legislation to expand gambling that passed in the House and the Senate, Quinn says if it makes it to his desk in its current form, he’ll veto it.

It literally took the General Assembly decade to devise the current plan, which Quinn has vowed to veto. Crafting and then finding the votes to pass a new plan without slots at tracks, that requires local “opt-in” for video gaming, bans campaign contributions from the gaming industry, etc. all within the next three weeks is gonna require a legislative miracle.

* The strain is really starting to show…

What Link and Lang may end up doing in the alternative is to write a “trailer bill” that would address some of Quinn’s concerns of about industry oversight, while keeping intact the slots-at-the-tracks provisions, and pass that along to Quinn. (Or, as Lang put it just now, “ram it down his throat.” Yes, things are getting a little tense here.)

A more polite approach…

[State Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria] said he also is concerned that Quinn had not fully engaged with lawmakers to find an acceptable compromise bill that could be passed.

That alone could mean that things are “back to square one,” said state Rep. David Leitch, R-Peoria.

* Meanwhile, Quinn’s action produced a sigh of relief in Iowa…

[Tim Bollman, general manager of Wild Rose Casino and Resort] had some good news to report. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced he would not support a bill that would expand gambling in Illinois without significant changes. Quinn said that certain bill provisions, such as allowing slot machines at race venues, would have to be removed under threat of veto.

Bollman said that adding slot machines to race tracks in border cities could potentially lure a percentage of the Wild Rose’s client base away.

* But the Illinois attorney general is supportive…

Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she was concerned from the beginning about the “enormous expansion” of gambling in Illinois.

“In order to expand gaming at any point you have to make sure you have the resources and the structure in place to ensure that you’re not ending up with a greater criminal element involved and that’s always been a priority of mine and I’m glad the governor took the time to look at this,” Madigan said.

* If Illinois ever could get its act together, then Indiana would have a right to be worried…

Indiana’s reliance on casino gambling might not be so apparent in northeast Indiana, but it goes far beyond the service-sector jobs in communities where Indiana’s 13 casinos are found. Casinos generated more than $860 million in tax revenue last year, about 5 percent of all state tax revenue.

Five percent of all state revenues? That’s huge. By contrast, Illinois casinos comprise a little over 1 percent of state revenues. And a very big percentage of that Indiana money is coming across state lines from Illinois.

* Illinois wouldn’t keep all that money home, however, even if it somehow does manage to build Chicago and south suburban casinos. Gamblers like to smoke. Look at what happened in Illinois after the smoking ban took effect compared to surrounding states…

Phil Kadner quotes COGFA…

“In the Chicago region, Illinois’ four riverboats (aggregate gross revenue) totals have fallen a combined $472.5 million,” or a minus 35.5 percent since the state passed a ban on cigarette smoking, “while Indiana’s four Chicago-area riverboats have actually increased by $6.6 million or 0.6 percent during this same time frame,” according to the report.