SPRINGFIELD — Lawmakers in Illinois are trying to stack the deck in favor of the state's slumping gaming industry.

The Illinois Senate voted 31-20 Wednesday in favor of a plan that allows for five additional casinos and electronic gaming at horse track facilities. There are currently 10 licenses for casinos in the state.

Under the plan, new casinos would operate in Chicago, southern Cook County, Danville, Rockford and Waukegan.

"Is it a huge expansion? Yes, I'm not going to deny it. But we have a huge deficit in the state of Illinois, we have got huge problems in the state of Illinois, so you don't look at little things to fix it, you look at big things to fix it," said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan.

Link said the expansion would bring in about $1 billion in revenue for the state. Most of this would come through license fees for and various taxes on the gaming.

Lawmakers concede that more gaming isn't their first choice to create jobs and generate revenue. Sen. Michael Frerichs, D-Champaign, said he'd like to see General Motors return to Danville, but that isn't happening.

Supporters of the plan said it is good because it will bring new construction and permanent jobs to the state. They are hoping the plan will prop up an industry that has seen declining revenue. Since January 2008, revenue collected by the state is down now nearly 30 percent., according to figures from the bipartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability..

"It's not the best thing we could do. It's not good, but it's the only thing available for new revenue," said Sen. William Haine, D-Alton.

Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, said a casino in his backyard could keep Illinois gamers from going up to Wisconsin to play the slots.

"Now we have an opportunity to bring those Wisconsin dollars to Illinois," Swerson said. "So it's good for Illinois in two ways. One it's creating new jobs and new revenue, but it's also bringing out-of-state money here."

The possibility of more legal gambling in the state has the existing industry fighting amongst itself. Casinos are opposed to the expansion, saying that more gaming would saturate the market, causing more loss of revenue. On the other hand, race track owners say they need all the help they can get to stay relevant. 

Haine represents an area of the state that has both casinos and rack tracks.

"I've got a track and a boat, so I struggled to make it so it was win-win," Haine said. "That's what I'm hoping. … I hope it is, if not we'll come back and adjust it."

Despite Senate approval Wednesday, the plan is far from becoming a reality. It still needs approval from the House of Representatives, which won't be back in Springfield until a lame-duck session of the General Assembly in January. To become law, this plan would need approved before the inauguration of the new legislature on Jan. 12.

Quinn said during a Wednesday news conference that he views the plan as too expansive.

"I haven't seen the whole bill, but what I heard about it when people talked about it seemed awfully top-heavy to me," Quinn said.

— Senate Bill 737