Gas station gambling issue not going away

The gas station gambling license that Joliet reluctantly made available opened the door to what gas station owners say is needed revenue and a video gaming machine operator called the fastest growing segment of its business.

The City Council, in trying to curb the growth of the business that it made possible, last week turned down an application for a third license at a Phillips 66 station at South Chicago and McDonough streets.

Five more stations have applications pending at City Hall.

Phillis 66 station owner Matthew Thomas said he wants “a level playing field” with the other stations that have the license.

He has the backing of Lucky Lincoln Gaming, a terminal operator that wants to add Joliet to the growing list of cities where it places video gaming machines in gas stations.

“It’s a completely different clientele,” said Nick Bretwisch, director of sales for Lucky Lincoln Gaming.

Bretwisch described gas stations as the company’s fastest growing market and one that doesn’t need to have alcohol sales to succeed.

“You can amend the BG license to say one drink per customer,” Bretwisch said. “The customers that game at gas stations are not there to drink beer.”

The BG license is the liquor license created by the city in June to allow for alcohol consumption and video gambling at gas stations.

The license was created after gas station owner Terry Lambert successfully appealed a denial of such a license to the Illinois Liquor Control Commission.

Joliet previously had a general ban against even package liquor sales at gas stations. But after losing the Lambert case the city created a new CG license, allowing for sale of packaged beer and wine, and BG license, allowing for the sale of packaged beer and wine, consumption and video gambling, in a compromise that at least did not include hard liquor sales.

Now Thomas is likely to appeal to the state commission with support from Lucky Lincoln Gaming for a BG license at his Phillips 66 station.

Lambert based his appeal on the city’s issuance in early 2020 of a liquor license intended to be a one-time deal for the new Thorntons station at Jackson and Collins streets in exchange for the company’s $300,000 contribution to relocate and save the 19th Century Casseday House, which was sitting on the construction site.

Thorntons representatives said they would run the station like another in Illinois which, they said, kept a can of warm beer on hand to meet the state requirement that gambling establishments serve alcohol.

One can of warm beer is probably enough from Bretwisch’s description of the gas station market.

“People are just going there to game – the same place they go to play lottery,” he said. “They’re not there to drink.”