Bally’s has hired former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s law firm to help potentially sue Chicago for violating the casino host agreement that she negotiated as mayor — a suit that would be based on the city’s decision to legalize video gambling terminals.
“We are pleased to have built an excellent and knowledgeable team here in Chicago. As we ramp up efforts to protect our investment in the city, we have also brought on the strategic counsel of RKF Global PLLC, where former Mayor Lightfoot is a partner,” Bally’s said in a statement.
Lightfoot refused to comment on her surprise involvement in Bally’s long-threatened legal challenge, which was first disclosed by Crain’s Chicago Business.
The $16.6 billion, 2026 budget approved by a City Council majority lifted the Chicago ban on video gambling and assumed Chicago would generate $6.8 million by licensing newly legalized video gambling terminals across the city. Bally’s, which is building a permanent casino in the River West neighborhood, strongly opposes legalized video gambling in the city.
David Greising, president and CEO of the Better Government Association, branded Lightfoot’s involvement “a pretty bald conflict of interest.” His reading of the city’s ethics ordinance is that the former mayor “can’t assist an employer or client on a contract over which they had substantial managerial responsibility for the life of that contract.”
“She is being hired to represent a client challenging their allegations about an agreement that she negotiated when she was mayor. It just feels like she’s playing on both sides here,” Greising said.
Greising noted that there was “was a lot of complaining at the time” Lightfoot made her choice that “Bally’s had the inside track and that she had her thumb on the scale — that she favored them as a bidder.”
“I don’t think there was any hard and fast proof of that. But it still does raise questions about the objectivity of the process way back then,” Greising said. “This company has been in trouble right from the get-go. We’ve seen how it has affected the slow-motion development of that property. There is good reason to question the choice and this just raises more questions about her relationship to Bally’s.”
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), the City Council’s chief proponent of video gambling terminals, condemned Bally’s decision to hire Lightfoot to represent the company.
“That is a quid pro quo to try to reward somebody who gave them a contract that they never should have gotten in the first place,” Beale said. “Their credit rating was bad. They had never built a casino They’re one of the lowest-performing operators out there. And they were the only ones to commit to giving her $40 million to plug her budget hole.”
Three years ago, Lightfoot convinced the City Council to ratify her choice of Bally’s to secure $40 million in upfront payments from Bally’s to keep police and fire pensions solvent and stave off a pre-election property tax increase.
At the time, Alderpersons Brian Hopkins (2nd) and Brendan Reilly (42nd) tried and failed to convince their colleagues to reject Bally’s bid. They argued that the $1.7 billion permanent casino and entertainment complex in River West would create an impossible bottleneck in an already congested area, and that Bally’s has never built a casino from the ground up.
They also accused Lightfoot of going around the City Council committee she created to give herself “political cover” for a decision she had already made.
Reilly added that Lightfoot’s eleventh-hour “switcheroo” to the landmark Medinah Temple as the site for Bally’s temporary casino would make an alarming spike in River North crime worse, and that the already congested area could not handle the influx of traffic.
The decision to lift the Chicago ban on video gambling terminals has divided the City Council and exacerbated tensions between alderpersons and Johnson.
Bally’s has warned that lifting Chicago’s ban on video gambling would cost the cash-strapped city $74 million in annual revenue and up to 1,050 jobs at its temporary and permanent casinos.
The casino giant has further warned that lifting the long-standing Chicago ban would force the Johnson administration to renegotiate “critical elements” of its host agreement, wipe out a yearly $4 million lump sum payment from Bally’s and shrink the casino jackpot needed to save police and fire pension funds.
Johnson has raised strong objections to legalizing video gambling, in part because he believes it would violate the city’s host agreement with Bally’s and expose the city to a lawsuit filed by the casino giant.
The mayor’s City Council allies have either banned or attempted to ban video gambling terminals in their individual wards while buying time for Johnson to find the votes to repeal the ordinance citywide.
The mayor’s office had no immediate comment on Bally’s hiring of Lightfoot’s law firm.