Chicago To Open Airport Poker Room?

Chicago has been floating the idea of setting up another casino within the city limits for a while, much to chagrin of the Rivers Casino in Des Plaines which is the only casino in Chicago having bypassed state restrictions by building over a small pit filled with water in order to comply with a state law instituted to allow gambling on riverboat casinos.

Mind you, every crook within the infamously crooked city limits was licking their chops at the chance to get a piece of the casino game in a town that was once once the stomping grounds of Al Capone. New mayoral candidate and ex-rozzer Gary McCarthy has a solution:

“The issue with a casino in the city is 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? [...] That’s going to eliminate the issue of the downside of not being able to control what happens — whether it’s organized crime, prostitution, narcotics or whatever.”

And it might just work. The security theatre of an airport should keep the crims at bay and the influx of bored tourists might just make for full tables with high turnover.

ORD is a major hub in the US which means layovers, and in the infamously delay prone US commercial air traffic cancellations and delays.

“If they’re sitting at a blackjack table, there’s going to be revenue generated," said McCarthy, and he’s not wrong about that.