^ Sim City?
In my dream, I'd hope for an upscale or upscale-ish casino downtown in an already existing building but the prices on the games run the gamut and aren't all expensive. Just gives people a different vibe. I have no idea if the Thompson Center would make a good casino. Maybe? No idea, but I'm sure there's other buildings. I totally agree with Ed Zotti on this. I've been to many casinos across America whether Vegas or rural Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, etc. Most of them are the same and it gets boring. Familiar, but boring. Even going into a "high roller" room in Vegas, you don't really feel like one. It pales in comparison to the stuff I've experienced in Asian casinos too.
Not only do many Chicagoans love the old mobster stereotype of Chicago, but so do tourists. Obviously you don't want to play to Al Capone or whatever, but why not play to the 1920s, for example, and kind of stoke those things? Make people feel like they are in the Chicago of old. Not like gangsters, but the classy part that some people see in pictures from some of them. The "London model" is more about card games - I'm sure you can do a mixture to be honest. It would be nice if they made part of this something where you felt like you were stepping into a Monte Carlo casino (but way dialed down on the pretension) in one part and maybe another is more approachable or familiar to others with more slot and video type games (i.e. video poker, video roulette, etc). On another note, I enjoyed the casino a lot at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore.
The more I think about it, the more I don't like putting this anywhere except downtown in a big, existing building with pretty big floor plates. People will cry foul that it's not put in a non downtown neighborhood, but honestly putting it in a struggling neighborhood is probably not a good thing except for providing some nearby jobs to people already there. While you can win in the short term in a casino, in the long term the house (casino) wins out. The last thing you need is to take away money from already cash strapped neighborhoods. Just my opinion. Figure out how to hire bigger from those neighborhoods though and make sure they can get to work fine.
Put it downtown, and you already have the public transit stuff figured out. They can probably work out deals with nearby parking garages or somehow subsidize some parking after X amount of hours in pay to park garages. If you make part of it upscale, then you'll have the nice cars getting valet'd to look at. People can take public transit, and people can drive in if they really want.
I think Chicago needs to set apart itself on this. I find 99% of casinos in America the same thing at their core whether they're in Vegas or in Michigan City, IN. Part of that can be a good thing, but Chicago should also strive to do a little to set itself apart from the rest of the casinos in this country which are a dime a dozen. This is just me though, but it would be awesome if you could go to a casino and it felt like you were stepping into the 1920s (the good part) and not into the cheese that is 99% of American casinos. People love role playing - they'd probably eat that s*it up. But on the other hands, it will be attacked by all sorts of people so it won't ever happen like that. It's going to end up as a casino in some part of town where tourists and 75% of locals will never go to, and will probably not do very well especially if put in a far flung area.
Of course you don't have to, but you could follow what casinos like Marina Bay Sands in Singapore does (Thompson Center?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF_pg35UMrA
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