Waukegan Aldermen Linked to Casino Bid Rigging and Cash Are Back in the News
In 2019, six candidates for Aldermen in Waukegan were given hundreds of thousands of dollars towards their campaigns in an apparent scheme to rig the casino selection process by the City of Waukegan. Each of these candidates was endorsed and supported by then-Mayor Sam Cunningham.
There was so much money given funneled into the campaigns of former Mayor Cunningham and these candidates by former State Senator Michael Bond through his video gambling machine company Tap Room Gaming that ProPublica published a story on the topic in 2019 titled “From Truck Stops to Elections, a River of Gambling Money Is Flooding Waukegan.” ProPublica revealed direct links between Michael Bond, who would later head a casino bid that Cunningham endorsed, Sam Cunningham, and former State Senator Terry Link, who since has been indicted on federal charges.
Senator Link had tried to bring a casino to Waukegan for nearly a generation. When the initial bill was drafted in Springfield by Link, its language would have guaranteed that Michael Bond and Tap Room Gaming would control the Waukegan Casino. Ultimately, this plan failed even in corrupt Springfield. However, when the legislation was finally passed in 2019, Bond still had a shot at pitching his North Point Casino to Waukegan Aldermen, but through a selection process.
The Michael Bond-funded candidates who won their elections, Alderman Keith Turner, Alderwoman Sylvia Sims-Bolton, Alderman Patrick Seger, and Alderman Roudell Kirkwood (who was later indicted on dozens of felonies), were essentially owned by Bond and Cunningham. And when it came time for Waukegan’s Aldermen to choose which casino proposals to send to the Illinois Gaming Board, according to a lawsuit by the Forest County Potawatomi Community, Mayor Cunningham told his gaming-backed candidates precisely who to support, and of course, that meant supporting Michael Bond’s casino bid.
Ultimately the Illinois Gaming Board was so concerned about the connections between the elected officials who took campaign money from Michael Bond that they awarded the casino to Full House Resorts, which since has opened The Temporary Casino in Waukegan’s Fountain Square.
As usual, with everything related to Waukegan corruption, the people who hurt the most are always the residents. Full House Resorts has committed nearly a half billion dollars into the Waukegan casino site, and in a worst-case scenario for Waukegan, the appellate court said that the Illinois Gaming Board might even need to restart the application process over again.
