“Based on Bond’s campaign largesse and personal connection to Cunningham, North Point indeed had the inside track. Then, ahead of the 2019 City Council election, Bond and his network of companies and committees gave $250,000 to candidates he backed, essentially fully bankrolling four candidates who won seats.Īccording to the tribal casino entity, city officials favoring Bond’s North Point proposal also selected Neil Bluhm’s Rush Street Gaming/Rivers Casino for consideration by the state gambling board as a result of Rivers’ teaming up with Waukegan Gaming LLC, the entity that had been selected by the city in an unsuccessful 2004 effort to bring a casino to town and had filed suit seeking the new license. In the final weeks of the 2017 mayoral campaign, Bond directed more than $50,000 to Cunningham. The Potawatomi group pointed to the significant financial contributions that Bond, CEO of Tap Room Gaming, had provided to councilmembers who voted in line with Cunningham’s request. The owners of the Potawatomi Hotel and Casino claim that former Mayor Sam Cunningham manipulated the bidding for a future Waukegan casino to favor the gambling company of former state Sen. The tribe later submitted supplementary materials emphasizing it was prepared to pay $12 million for the plot, which was not included in the Johnson Consultants report.Īccording to the lawsuit, the report rated the Potawatomi as first or second in every other category except for the purchase price, but ultimately ranked the entire proposal last – a decision the tribe describes as “inexplicable.” It merely stated it would pay within 15 percent of the plot’s market value. The report in question, complied by Johnson Consultants, asserted the tribe was offering $5.6 million to buy the plot of land on which the casino would be built, the lowest of the four bids.īut the tribe argues it didn’t quote any specific price for the land in its application at all, and neither was it required to.

But the Potawatomi project didn’t make the cut. Last week, the city council rubber-stamped bids from the tribe’s three competitors - Full House Resorts, North Point Casino, and Rivers Casino Waukegan – sending them to the Illinois Gaming Board, which will make the final decision. The Forest County Potawatomi tribe of Wisconsin is suing the city of Waukegan, Illinois, for rejecting its proposal to build a casino on the site of a ghost shopping mall in the city.

Waukegan casino news