At least $1,085,383 -- Includes 1995-96 campaign contributions

• Search Illinois gambling contributions from 1995-96

June 9, 1997

The Prairie State has become a gambling battleground. Though the state already runs its own lottery and permits pari-mutuels and charitable gaming, the real money has come with riverboat gaming. While Illinois racetracks took in a healthy $276.3 million (after paying winners) in 1996, the riverboats' post-payout take grew at an astounding rate: from $15 million in 1991 to nearly $1.18 billion in 1995. And that's for just 13 casinos owned by 10 licensees.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) would have authorized 14 new casino licenses and allowed the existing riverboats to stay open 24 hours a day, while ending the requirement that they cruise. It died in the Legislature in late April 1997. At the same time, the Illinois House passed a bill to ban gambling interests from making donations to political candidates, in hopes of stemming the flood of political money that has come from both local and national gaming companies.

Thanks to the public interest group Advocacy Associates, campaign contribution records for 1995 through June 1996 are now downloadable online. Mother Jones searched these for big gambling companies, added a few select contributions from late 1996, and found at least $1,085,383 in gambling money, which we've built into a searchable database.

According to another public interest group called The Public Access Project, the total figure for 1995 and 1996, including lobbying, is closer to $2 million, and that kind of spending seems par for the course: The New York Times reported in 1995 that the gambling lobby contributed about $1.2 million to candidates for state office between July 1, 1994, and June 30, 1995. That would bring the total even higher, but we stuck with our own research -- and our extremely conservative $1 million figure.

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