Just hours after the Illinois Gaming Board awarded the state’s coveted 10th casino license to the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines last week, State Sen. Terry Link (D-Waukegan) began rallying for the state to add more.

“We will be looking into an expansion of gaming in the next session,” Link told the Lake County News-Sun. “We want to do a capital bill. This would be one of the avenues in which to do it.”

Such proposals should come as no surprise. For some time, Illinois state lawmakers have looked to gaming expansion as an easy way to fetch big bucks.

But is this smart public policy?

In mid-December, Fitch Ratings reported that 2008 was a dismal year for Illinois’ gaming industry. Statewide gaming regulators confirmed the slump, noting that state revenues will drop by as much as $160 million this year, much of which is earmarked for education. The credit rating agency doesn’t see a quick recovery on the horizon, either. And that could complicate things in Illinois, which is more reliant on the industry than most states.

Despite a growing body of evidence that gaming is not the quick fix lawmakers would like to believe, Illinois officials can’t seem to let it go. The reason seems fairly simple: it takes less political courage to hand out a gaming license than adopt sustainable and progressive revenue sources.

The state certainly needs to come up with a plan to generate more revenue. As one of the largest economies in the nation, Illinois shouldn’t be struggling to pay for education, social services, or capital projects. Officials just need to find consensus on how to harness that wealth.

As we’ve noted before, a progressive income tax would go a long way towards putting the state on better financial footing.

Meanwhile, hiking the gas tax might make the most sense. We’ll have more about that debate -- on both the state and national level -- later today.

Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user geekgirlunveiled.