Illinois casinos and video gaming venues cleared to reopen as of July 1

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration on Thursday gave the state’s 10 casinos and thousands of video gambling machine operators the green light to reopen July 1 at 9 a.m., after an unprecedented three-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The land-based gaming industry will follow other sectors reopening Friday with the statewide introduction of Phase 4. “I’m not an expert about how many times you need to wipe down a video gambling terminal to make it safe,” Pritzker said during a Loop news conference, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. “Like other activities, we’re trying to do these things in measures, with lots of health and safety guidance. The No. 1 driving factor is people should not get sick while doing those activities.”

Boyd Gaming announced Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino will reopen July 1 at 11 a.m. with reduced hours and 50% capacity. Guests will need to wear masks and social distance. Buffets, poker rooms, table game tournaments and valet parking are not allowed.

“We look forward to getting back to business and providing our guests with a safe and enjoyable entertainment experience,” Cori Rutherford, Vice President and General Manager of Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino, said in a news release.

Boyd Gaming confirmed in late May that between 25-60% of Par-A-Dice's staff could be laid off by mid-July. The company would not say how the reopening affects those plans. The casino has also been approved to offer sports betting, but they have "nothing to announce," about when they will start, Boyd Spokesperson David Strow said, as reported by ABC Heart of Illinois. 

All in-person gambling operations have been shuttered since March 16 in Illinois, the first time the casinos had closed for a sustained period since the state’s first riverboat opened three decades ago. The same goes for the 36,000-plus video slots that sit in almost 7,300 bars, restaurants and rest stops, and now make up the state’s top gaming revenue source outside the Illinois Lottery.

The shutdown left more than 5,000 casino employees out of work, and it shut off critical funds for the state. Casinos raked in more than $470 million from March through June 2019, with $114 million of it going to the state, according to Illinois Gaming Board records. Gamblers lost almost $587 million at video slots over the same time frame, resulting in about $147 million for the state.

Earlier this month, as casinos resumed operations in Indiana and Wisconsin, the Illinois Gaming Board issued a set of reopening guidelines and required casinos and terminal operators to submit their own plans for approval. Each casino was capped at 50% capacity, though that’s subject to change “depending on public health conditions at any time,” the Gaming Board said, and everyone has to “have some type of face covering.”

Casinos must provide free personal protective equipment and daily health screenings to employees, post signage reminding gamblers about social distancing and “proper hand washing,” and regularly disinfect all gaming equipment including dice, chips, cards and roulette wheels.

“The casinos are gonna be some of the safest places people can be,” Illinois Casino Gaming Association executive director Tom Swoik said. “All of them are being totally disinfected. They’re gonna have people continuously monitoring the machines and the tables, wiping every possible surface down.”

At those video slots outside casinos, operators need to set up physical partitions between the machines or space them out, among other precautions.