Illinois Steps Up Enforcement on Charity Poker

Illinois officials are taking a tougher line on charity poker operations, raiding roughly a dozen such games this year and closing some over their ties with for-profit gambling consultants, The Chicago Tribune writes.

The state’s law on charity gambling allows nonprofit groups to consult with commercial firms to set up casinos but bars the consultants from actively running the games and providing paid dealers.

“We received a lot of complaints and decided we needed to refocus some attention and started doing more compliance checks, both overt and covert,” said Susan Hofer said, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Revenue.

Critics say the state should regulate the consultants, whom Cory Aronovitz, a former lawyer for the Illinois Gaming Board, said are “just using the charity to hold a card game.”