More than 400 years ago, in July 1619, the first elected legislative body in what then was known as the New World convened in the church in Jamestown.
Called the Virginia House of Burgesses, the session included Gov. George Yeardley, who’d arrived from England a few months earlier, and 22 elected representatives of 11 plantations. According to History.com, the first law enacted set the price of tobacco at a minimum of three shillings per pound. During the rest of the six-day session, the burgesses banned gambling, drunkenness and idleness while mandating observance of the Sabbath, in a way sanctioning the idleness outlawed from Monday through Saturday.
Four-plus centuries and 50 states later, Illinois’ General Assembly is still busy with matters of smoking material and wagering.
In order to generate revenue for the fiscal 2026 budget, state lawmakers last week approved increasing the tax rate on tobacco products from 36% to 45% while ensuring nicotine pouches and vaping products are included on the list. Someone better at math, history and agriculture could craft a comparison of shillings per pound of leaves to dollars per carton of Marlboros, but suffice it to say in 2025, the idea of a “cash crop” applies to more than just farmers.
It almost seems like ancient history, but there was a time – mostly before the state’s indoor smoking ban took effect in 2008 – when I could get at least one column per year out of the hypocrisy of lawmakers who proposed increasing the cigarette tax as a way to both curb smoking and improve the state budget.
Those two goals are, of course, incompatible, because if you need the money from smokers, you obviously want them to keep smoking. At least now there are no pretenses: we know some people are addicted and will pay whatever it costs to feed that beast. Most folks who aren’t smokers are vapers don’t care enough to object strenuously, which is why the General Assembly didn’t pull a similar move on alcohol.
Sports gamblers also must not be a big enough sector of the population to be a protected class. All legal books will now pay a quarter per wager for the first 20,000 bets per year and 50 cents thereafter. This change comes a year after changing tax rates to generate about $250 million in extra state revenue from FanDuel and DraftKings for the privilege of earning more than $730 million combined in Illinois.
Perhaps if the Virginia Burgesses knew they could profit from gambling, sports books wouldn’t have operated under the table for hundreds of years. In modern Illinois, just like tobacco, sports betting is a boon for politicians looking to squeeze extra juice with little to no pushback.
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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