Pekin to return to flat fee for gaming machines after judge’s ruling

PEKIN (25News Now) – Pekin Mayor Mary Burress says the city will not appeal a judge’s decision canceling an ordinance that charged gaming machine operators a portion of their gambling earnings, and the mayor believes the city won’t lose a lot of money in the process.

Burress tells 25News that Pekin will return to the previous system of charging a fee of $1,000 a year for each of the city’s 233 gaming terminals.

The mayor said the ordinance thrown out by the court was intended to help small businesses by allowing them to pay 2.5% of each machine’s earnings instead of the flat fee.

However, two members of the Illinois Gaming Machine Operators Association (IGMOA) filed a lawsuit against the city in December, and Tazewell County Judge Paul Bauer ruled in the operators’ favor on May 24.

According to the mayor, Pekin’s government will continue to collect a little more than $200,000 annually from the gaming terminals.

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