THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All...More mobile betting...Pushback on ending health care for illegal immigrants
March 17, 2025
Good morning, lads and lasses. Happy Me Day.
Illinois plays Friday night in the NCAA Tournament against either Texas or Xavier. It’s in Milwaukee, so Chicago area Illini fans have no real excuse not to go up there.
SIU-Edwardsville is also in the tournament. They’re a 16 seed and play top seeded Houston (and the evil Kelvin Sampson) Thursday. Shock the world, Coogs.
The House and Senate are back on Tuesday. There’s nothing on the Governor’s public schedule today.
Enjoy your corned beef and cabbage and practice your Gaeilge.
Let’s get to it.
YOUR THURSDAY FREE FOR ALL
(note: we’re not responsible for paywalls and restrictions from other news outlets, because good journalism isn’t free)
Illinois gambling regulators target PrizePicks, renewing daily fantasy sports debate (Chicago Sun-Times)
The daily fantasy sports debate is back in Illinois.
Nearly a decade after Illinois officials tried — and failed — to clamp down on the popular sports lineup-building contests that some critics decry as illegal gambling, state regulators set their sights last month on one of the most popular apps operating in a long-standing legal gray area.
The Illinois Gaming Board sent a cease-and-desist letter to PrizePicks just days ahead of the Super Bowl, declaring that some of the Atlanta-based company’s daily fantasy contests “constitute illegal gambling in violation of Illinois law” and could draw fines. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul also urged them “to cease unlicensed sports betting.”
The scathing letter was in a batch of legal actions sent out to 11 gaming companies, a list that lumped in PrizePicks and other daily fantasy sites with Bovada, an offshore sportsbook that has taken bets in flagrant violation of state and federal law for years, officials say.
PrizePicks says it no longer offers the contests that had regulators blowing the whistle in Illinois.
But with the arrival of March Madness and the annual glut of gambling it attracts, the company is still poised to cash in with other offerings on a platform that strongly resembles sports betting — part of the booming daily fantasy market that Illinois legislators have yet to tax or regulate.
In traditional fantasy sports leagues, fans compete against each other as “team owners,” selecting professional or college athletes whose real-life stats over the course of a full season determine the league’s winner. It’s usually just for bragging rights or a pooled jackpot among friends, coworkers or fellow fans.
Companies started making regulators’ heads spin in the mid-2000s with the advent of daily fantasy sports contests, in which customers can assemble numerous rosters on their phone to square off with strangers for cash stakes, based on real-life player performances in a single day.
Former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued a 2016 decision arguing that was enough to meet the definition of illegal gambling, over the objections of companies like FanDuel and DraftKings — which nevertheless kept operating in the state. They and other companies argue their contests are games of skill, not chance.
But those two giant corporations aren’t facing the wrath of Illinois authorities this time around, because now they have costly sports betting licenses following the 2019 legalization of sports betting.
In the past year alone, DraftKings and FanDuel have raked in nearly $383 million and $461 million, respectively, from Illinois sports bettors, according to Gaming Board records. And that’s not counting their massive daily fantasy operations, since that end of their business still isn’t regulated.
Related: Lawmakers mull betting on internet gambling while existing industry warns it’ll fold (Capitol News Illinois)
Immigrant families scramble as state health insurance for some noncitizens faces the axe in Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget plan (Chicago Tribune)
Despite being born with malformed limbs and later giving birth to four children, Francisca avoided going to the doctor as much as possible for about two decades.
The 58-year-old Southwest Side resident lacked health insurance, so when she got sick or was in pain she often relied on home remedies. When she had a toothache, she wouldn’t go to the dentist.
Nearly two years ago, though, Francisca’s situation changed dramatically. She obtained health coverage through a state program that provides taxpayer-funded insurance to immigrants like her who are in the country without legal permission as well as green card holders who haven’t been in the U.S. long enough to qualify for Medicaid, the traditional health care program for the poor.
When she had her first dental cleaning after getting the state-funded coverage, “it felt like a blessing,” said Francisca, who asked to be identified by only her first name because of her immigration status.
But in just a few months, Francisca and more than 30,000 other immigrants in Illinois may be uninsured once again as Gov. JB Pritzker has proposed eliminating funding for the program that began in 2022 for noncitizen immigrants ages 42 to 64.
While coverage would continue for noncitizen immigrants 65 and older, cutting the program for the 42-to-64 age group is a significant piece of Pritzker’s plan to balance a $55.2 billion state budget proposal. The governor estimates it will save $330 million as costs are rising and growth in income and sales taxes is slowing, developments that continue to strain the state’s finances and force difficult decisions to ensure the state lives within its means, Pritzker has said.
The effort to provide state-funded insurance, which began with coverage for those 65 and older during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020, has become a lightning rod in Springfield as costs far outstripped projections. Although many immigrants living in Illinois without authorization pay state and federal taxes that support the program and other services for which they are ineligible because of their citizenship status, a recent state audit found that over three years the insurance program for older immigrants cost nearly double what was expected and the program for the younger group cost nearly four times more than anticipated.
Pritzker’s proposal, which blindsided many of the programs’ supporters in the state legislature, has created some political dissonance for Democrats, particularly for the governor himself as he angles for national attention as a leading opponent of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and Republican proposals to cut federal Medicaid funding.
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POLITICAL POTPOURRI
In remarks to teachers union, Pritzker lashes out at Trump’s education cuts (Capitol News Illinois)
Michael Reese developers throw Hail Mary proposal for Bears stadium (Chicago Sun-Times)
Bears stadium or not, Rolling Meadows considers shrinking nearby Kirchoff Road (Daily Herald)
Measure would create mental health defense for battering a cop (Crain’s Chicago Business)
Democratic lawmaker grows concerned with use of AI in health care (Capitol News Illinois)
Illinois Dems split on allowing vote on bill to avert government shutdown (Chicago Sun-Times)
Marian ‘Cindy’ Pritzker, family matriarch, philanthropist and Gov. JB Pritzker’s aunt, dies at 101 (Chicago Tribune)
Editorial: The time has not yet come for per-mile taxes on Illinois drivers (Chicago Tribune)
Editorial: Get the facts before spending money state doesn't have (Champaign News-Gazette)
Opinion: Once again, lawmakers consider stepping on IHSA’s self governance (Shaw Media)
Opinion: What can be done to save mass transit in Chicago and the suburbs? (Chicago Tribune)
Opinion: Illinois drug bills still pushing the wrong thing (Peoria Journal-Star)
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