* ProPublica Illinois’ Jason Grotto…

Andrew Rubenstein rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange last November, then pumped his fist and cheered. He had much to celebrate. In a decade, the company he founded and led, Illinois-based Accel Entertainment, had grown from a tiny startup into the largest video gambling operator in the nation. Accel had also become the country’s first video gambling operator to be publicly traded. With the backing of investors, Accel now hopes to bring video gambling to other cash-strapped states hungry for new sources of revenue.

Few would have predicted Rubenstein’s fledgling enterprise to emerge as the industry leader in 2009, when Illinois legalized video gambling outside of casinos. He had no experience in the gambling business and no apparent ties to companies that, before legalization, had provided bars and restaurants with “gray” machines, simulated video slots and poker devices that were legal but widely known to be used for illegal gambling.

Rubenstein, according to the company, used a combination of savvy hires, well-timed acquisitions of other operators and infusions of capital from family, friends and private equity firms to catapult Accel to the top of the heap.

But records obtained by ProPublica Illinois, as well as interviews with current and former Accel employees who asked to remain anonymous, reveal that Rubenstein and his company also took advantage of connections at the Illinois Gaming Board. They did so using an unusual degree of access to a key board attorney during video gambling’s earliest days, when regulations were being drafted and the competition to lock up gambling locations was at its fiercest.

In addition, the company obtained internal gaming board documents about its competitors and benefited from board decisions that made it more difficult for other operators to gain a foothold in Illinois’ video gambling market.

The gaming board lawyer, Bill Bogot, was a childhood friend of Rubenstein’s. He met with Rubenstein regularly and used two private email accounts to correspond with him, answering legal questions and helping the company when it ran into snags with other regulators, according to the emails and interviews. […]

Similarly, industry insiders say the confidential documents in Accel’s possession would have given it an advantage in building its business. It’s also illegal for gaming board staff to release “protected personal information” to third parties; gaming board officials said they would investigate the leaked confidential documents and, if appropriate, forward any findings to other authorities.

“The IGB takes these allegations very seriously and will not tolerate unethical or illegal conduct of any kind,” said Marcus Fruchter, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyer appointed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in May 2019 to run the gaming board.

Bogot said in an interview that he would have given any other video gambling operator the same information he provided to Rubenstein in the emails.

How many times were we told that the Illinois Gaming Board Chairman was running a super-tight ship? The Tribune editorial board was solidly behind him, and yet we keep seeing these sorts of stories emerge years later.

* Also, this…

Bogot left the board in July 2013 and not long after went to work for Donna More, Accel’s gaming attorney. More was the gaming board’s first general counsel and is currently running in the Democratic primary for Cook County state’s attorney.

And was endorsed by the Tribune, of course.