Bally’s Chicago Eyes Another Opening Delay

Bally’s Chicago may not hit its long-promised opening date for its permanent casino after all.

With the company’s already-extended temporary license to operate at Medinah Temple set to expire in September, state lawmakers are moving to buy Bally’s more time. The Chicago Tribune reported that state Representative Kam Buckner introduced legislation Thursday that would allow up to another 12 months of temporary operations while construction continues on Bally’s $1.7 billion casino, hotel and entertainment complex in River West.

The bill would effectively push Bally’s deadline to open its permanent facility to as late as September 2027, extending a timeline that has already slipped multiple times.

Bally’s was selected by the city in 2022 to develop the long-awaited casino on the 30-acre former Tribune Freedom Center printing plant site. The project is slated to include a 500-room hotel, a 3,000-seat theater, an exhibition hall, 10 restaurants and roughly 4,000 gaming positions, making it the largest casino in Illinois.

But construction has been anything but smooth. The city halted demolition work at the Freedom Center site in December 2024 after debris spilled into the Chicago River. In May 2025, the Illinois Gaming Board ordered another work stoppage after contractors used an unauthorized waste hauler with alleged organized crime ties. Last year, Bally’s also had to redesign the site plan and relocate the 34-story hotel tower to avoid damaging water management infrastructure along the river.

Those setbacks have steadily eroded the project’s schedule. Bally’s had long targeted a September 2026 opening, aligned with the expiration of its temporary license. That date was later pushed to the fourth quarter of 2026. Even that timeline, the Illinois Gaming Board has said, would require legislative action to keep the Medinah Temple casino open in the interim.

Buckner’s bill would extend the temporary license by six months, with the option for two additional three-month extensions while construction wraps up. Buckner’s 26th District includes Medinah Temple, where Bally’s has been operating since September 2023, according to the publication.

The stakes are high for both Bally’s and City Hall. The permanent casino is expected to generate far more revenue than the temporary setup, which has underperformed projections. Bally’s Chicago ranked fifth statewide last year, posting about $125 million in adjusted gross receipts and 1.3 million visitors, according to Gaming Board data.

That muted performance comes as Illinois casino revenue overall is surging. The state’s 17 casinos generated more than $1.9 billion in adjusted gross receipts in 2025, up 15 percent, year-over-year.

— Eric Weilbacher