As soon as linked to mobbed-up video playing community, Cicero diner operator sues regulators to maintain gaming license

Facing the lack of a profitable video gaming license over long-ago accusations of illicit playing payouts, connections to reputed mob figures and dishonesty with state regulators, the operator of a Cicero diner sued the Illinois Gaming Board this week to undo its revocation order.

Filed Monday, the swimsuit by Jeffrey Bertucci’s Firebird Enterprises Inc., features a request to a Cook County choose to let the video gaming terminals inside Bertucci’s Steak N Egger franchise within the close to western suburb function whereas the case is litigated, letting the money proceed to roll in, not less than quickly.

The gaming board — which stories to Gov. JB Pritzker and regulates casinos, sports activities playing and video poker and slots in Illinois — determined Thursday to revoke Firebird’s license, ignoring Administrative Law Judge Michael Coveny’s suggestion {that a} board effort to strip it away be dismissed.

The lawsuit, the most recent back-and-forth over this difficulty, argues partially that Bertucci was by no means convicted of an unlawful playing offense, so the gaming board doesn’t have the appropriate to revoke his potential to function the gaming terminals.

The company alleges that amid the license software course of previous to its licensing of Firebird in 2019, Bertucci “misrepresented the extent and duration of his involvement with and use of coin-operated amusement devices for illegal gambling purposes” in his “license application and an interview” with gaming board brokers.

The gaming board additionally stated, “Bertucci’s background and associations would have disqualified him from licensure had he candidly advised the board of his criminal history.”

Bertucci was arrested over making playing payouts years earlier when that was nonetheless unlawful in Illinois. And he testified underneath immunity at a 2010 mob trial that he had continued to pay out from the machines gotten from reputed organized crime figures after that.

But Firebird’s lawsuit states: “Significantly, neither Mr. Bertucci nor Plaintiff have ever been convicted of a crime related to illegal gambling or Grey Games,” the latter a time period typically used to explain illicit payouts from gaming terminals in bars, eating places and different institutions.

The swimsuit factors to Coveny’s reasoning “that because the allegations about Mr. Bertucci’s past conduct all related to Grey Games, Section 45 (a-5) of the Illinois Video Gaming Act (230 ILCS 40/1, et seq.) (‘VGA’), which had passed specifically to address applicants with Grey Games in their pasts controlled the outcome.”

“Judge Coveny pointed to the fact that in Section 45 (a-5) the Legislature had chosen to limit the Board’s discretion to deny licensure to applicants who ‘facilitated, enabled, or participated in the use of’ Grey Games by narrowly defining ‘facilitated, enabled, or participated in the use of’ to mean actually convicted [emphasis from lawsuit] of illegal gambling.”

“Because it was undisputed that Plaintiff and Mr. Bertucci had not been convicted of any such crimes, Judge Coveny recommended” the gaming board’s revocation criticism be tossed “because Plaintiff demonstrated by clear and ‘convincing evidence standard of proof’ … that its owner ‘did not participate, enable or facilitate in the use of coin-operated machines for illegal gambling purposes, as a matter of law [emphasis from lawsuit], and the Board’s Amended Complaint was solely based on that issue.”

The swimsuit stated Coveny dismissed the gaming board’s “attempt to ignore Section 45 (a-5) observing that, “The Board’s powers, extensive as they are, do not include ignoring a VGA amendment it apparently was strongly opposed to.’”

Gaming board officers had no touch upon the lawsuit, which states the company “switched off” the terminals Friday on the Steak N Egger at 5647 W. Ogden Ave.

They’ve beforehand stated the company hadn’t identified about all of Bertucci’s baggage — particularly his testimony on the trial involving reputed mob figures and the Outlaws Motorcycle Club — and had they, Firebird wouldn’t have been licensed.

The company is tasked with making certain the integrity of authorized playing, and that features holding these with unsavory associations away from the trade.

But the lawsuit additionally says the company “was aware” of Bertucci’s previous “when it granted Plaintiff a license.”

The company’s resolution to revoke the license final week “was erroneous and contrary to law because” the gaming board, also called the IGB, “granted Plaintiff’s establishment license in January of 2019 and repeatedly renewed Plaintiff’s license in January of 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 even after the IGB was demonstrably aware of the very facts it claims not to have known when the license was first granted.”

Neither Bertucci nor his lawyer had speedy remark.

Read lawsuit towards the Illinois Gaming Board