“Every detail of the video gaming experience, from the lights and the shape of the buttons to the sound effects,” she said, “has been meticulously designed to make people play longer and faster and to spend more money.”
Moreover, she said, studies show that “the rates of gambling addiction tend to increase with the number of gambling options, and so I think adding more gambling options here in Evanston would be a big mistake.”
She also questioned the financial benefits the move would create – $100,000 in new income, according to one estimate – “while gamblers would lose roughly one and a half million dollars a year playing gaming devices here in Evanston.”
Reid noted another estimate that gamblers would spend $1.5 million patronizing businesses elsewhere.
Making the best of a ‘not great situation’
“Does the city of Evanston get a cut of it because we regulate this and do our local businesses get to benefit from it because folks are keeping the behavior local, rather than taking it elsewhere,” he asked. “And so I highly appreciate these concerns and I think they are valid, but I think given the landscape it’s a battle that under our current regulations that we’ve lost, and I think what I’m looking to do is make the best of a not great situation.”
Other committee members, while acknowledging concerns, supported the ordinance moving forward, citing its benefit to local businesses.
Council member Juan Geracaris (9th Ward), said his support was for small businesses. “I know margins are tight with the way the economy is and this is a potential extra revenue stream,” he said.
Further, he observed, “gambling is not going anywhere. It seems like on a national scale, it’s going to be expanding and unless that changes, I think, we’d be remiss to not have it happen here too.”
Council member Krissie Harris (2nd Ward), pointed to the city’s recent ordinance banning the sale of flavored tobacco products because of its influence on youth.
“I want us to have that same energy for gambling,” she said to committee members. “Is that what we want in our restaurant” when out with kids, she asked.
“We just got rid of flavored tobacco because it was enticing the youth,” she noted. “I think the gaming on phones is enticing that at a younger age. And then the more we expose people to things the more it becomes commonplace. So I just want us to think of those things.”
Council member Bobby Burns (5th Ward) noted there was a time when gambling was the only flashing thing, as Revelle mentioned, that gave you rewards, “but now that is all loaded in the palm of your hands at any given time.”
He also noted the business community’s backing as support for moving the ordinance forward, “to allow the whole council to consider this.”
Under the proposed ordinance, nine establishments within the city would be allowed to obtain video gambling terminals. The businesses receiving the machines would have to be established at least 12 months and could have a maximum of three terminals each.
The fee for a video gambling license is $1,000 with an additional $500 per terminal fee paid annually.
Committee backs wellness pilot
At the meeting, committee members also backed spending of $400,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act COVID recovery funds to support an “Evanston Pathway to Wellness,” a one-year pilot program aimed at improving health outcomes.
The program would most specifically pinpoint census tract 8092 in the city’s Fifth Ward, where a Health Department study several years ago identified life expectancy as lower than other areas of the city.
Several council members, including Second Ward Committee Member Harris and Eighth Ward Committee Member Reid, said they would want the program to address areas in their wards where health disparities exist too.
Fifth Ward Council member Bobby Burns, in whose ward the program is concentrated, said, “What I’m excited about is how we can quite literally extend peoples lives and allow them more time with their families and to be here with us.”
He said the research part of the program, in which the city will team up with the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, presents the opportunity “to add to the body of work, the medical work around these type of interventions.”
“And honestly, I think if you look at how the ARPA was fashioned,” he added later, “this was exactly what they really want to see local governments doing with these funds.”
The issue will next move to the council, probably for the May 28 meeting.
