Looks like the video gaming machines at a Cicero diner run by businessman Jeffrey Bertucci are going to stay off for now, as a Cook County judge on Wednesday rejected his efforts to halt an Illinois Gaming Board decision stripping him of his gambling license.
The board — the arm of state government responsible for regulating legalized gambling in Illinois — revoked Bertucci’s Firebird Enterprises, Inc., license on July 31, arguing that during the licensing process he hadn’t been forthcoming about the scope of illegal video gambling he was involved in years earlier, before video poker and similar games were legalized.
His machines were turned off following the revocation, and so was the spigot of revenue — which totaled more than $200,000 in “net terminal income” over the last two years alone.
Firebird, which operates a Steak N Egger restaurant in the near west suburb, quickly sued the agency to reverse the revocation, and asked the court to “stay” or pause the gaming board’s decision while the litigation proceeded. That would’ve allowed the video gambling devices in the diner to be active again — pulling in revenue.
But Judge David B. Atkins’ written ruling said, “The court cannot find such a stay appropriate.”
“The Administrative Review Law allows this court to issue such stays where a plaintiff demonstrates ‘good cause’ for the same, which ‘requires the applicant to show (i) that an immediate stay is required in order to preserve the status quo without endangering the public, (ii) that it is not contrary to public policy, and (iii) that there exists a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits.”
“Here, while a stay would certainly preserve the status quo, Plaintiff [Firebird] has not shown it would do so without endangering the public, or that a stay would not be contrary to public policy. As Defendants [the gaming board] argue, the Illinois Gambling Act expresses a policy in favor of licensed gambling, but ‘only if public confidence and trust in the credibility and integrity of the gambling operations and the regulatory process is maintained.’”
“The Board is called upon to maintain such confidence through strict regulation of all such facilities, and here it has raised serious integrity and credibility reasons for its Decision, including that Mr. Bertucci . . . allegedly admitted to a ‘longstanding illegal gambling scheme’ during a trial after the license was granted which ‘at a minimum undoubtedly discredit[s] or tend to discredit[s] the Illinois gambling industry.’”
“For these reasons, Plaintiff’s Motion is hereby DENIED.”
Bertucci’s attorneys and the gaming board declined comment.
The gaming board alleges that amid the license application process prior to its licensing of Firebird in 2019, Bertucci “misrepresented the extent and duration of his involvement with and use of coin-operated amusement devices for illegal gambling purposes” in his “license application and an interview” with gaming board agents.
The gaming board also said “Bertucci’s background and associations would have disqualified him from licensure had he candidly advised the board of his criminal history.”
The agency had known that Bertucci was arrested in 2000 over making gambling payouts when that was illegal in Illinois. But the agency insists it wasn’t aware of other troubling matters, including that he testified under immunity at a 2010 mob trial that he’d continued to pay out from machines gotten from reputed organized crime figures after his 2000 arrest.
But Firebird’s lawsuit says: “Significantly, neither Mr. Bertucci nor Plaintiff have ever been convicted of a crime related to illegal gambling or Grey Games,” the term sometimes used to describe illicit payouts from gaming terminals in bars and restaurants.
The suit also says the agency indeed “was aware” of Bertucci’s past “when it granted Plaintiff a license.”
The agency’s decision to revoke the license “was erroneous and contrary to law,” the suit says, noting the gaming board granted “Plaintiff’s establishment license in January of 2019 and repeatedly renewed Plaintiff’s license in January of 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 even after the IGB was demonstrably aware of the very facts it claims not to have known when the license was first granted.”
At a court hearing earlier in the week that led to Wednesday’s ruling, Firebird attorney Matthew S. Payne noted that Bertucci’s diner was losing customers and “suffering damage to its reputation.”
Payne said the gaming board is “not saying he’s a mobster,” only that he long ago was involved with Grey Games.
“My client has kept his nose clean.”
Ashley Lonski, a lawyer representing the gaming board, said the agency has wide “discretion” in vetting applicants and looking at their reputations and background, and “had ample evidence to support its decision” involving Firebird’s license.