AURORA, Ill., September 15 (UPI) -- When the Pratt brothers of Dallas showed up in this sleepy river town in 1991, the city was tired, slovenly, a little desperate--and very skeptical that a so-called riverboat casino was the answer to their woes.

So Ed Pratt, who was running the Sands in Atlantic City at the time, made them a promise. If they helped him get his license, he would not only build a casino that would replace all the lost income from the downsizing of the traditional bedrock of the town--Caterpillar Tractor--but he would see that the downtown area was revitalized (one of their big concerns was "the downtown problem") and he would personally see that the historic Paramount Theater would be reborn and thrive again.

It was the last claim they were most dubious about.

"The Paramount Theater," says Pratt with obvious pride, "is one of the original 12 Paramounts built by Paramount Pictures--a beautiful art deco theater that had been losing money for years. It was important to the city, so I told them that not only would we restore it, but the opening act would be Frank Sinatra. They didn't believe me, of course, but Frank was there for the reopening. Frank had a long-running relationship with us, and in fact, his last casino engagement was with us, at the Sands."

From then on, Aurora had a love affair with the Hollywood Casino--and the Paramount Arts Centre, as it's called now, has so many bookings that sometimes the casino has trouble getting dates for its headliners. The Pratts are no longer around--earlier this year they sold out to the Penn National company, which runs race tracks in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Jersey and regional casinos in Mississippi, Louisiana and Colorado--but the Hollywood is the lodestar around which downtown Aurora revolves. It's by far the most beautiful casino in Illinois, with a dockside barge set up so that you don't see the Fox River at all and the feel of a spacious land-based gambling palace. It employs 1,600 people and draws from all over the Chicago area, plus Kane and DuPage counties, consistently ranking either third or fourth among Illinois casinos.

In any year other than 2003, both Penn National and the Chamber of Commerce would be celebrating. But this is the year that Governor Rod Blagojevich pushed through a remarkable 70 percent tax on gambling--highest anywhere in the world--and as a result the Hollywood has had to start charging a $5 admissions fee, cancel plans for a hotel and meeting center, and generally cut back on frills like the poker room, which is now open only at certain slow times during the week.

The Hollywood--which did exactly what it was supposed to do, revitalizing a Rust Belt town--is now being penalized for its success.

"First the tax was 35 percent, which is pretty high," says Executive Vice President and General Manager G. Patt Medchill, "but then last year it was raised to 50, and already we couldn't build anything at that level. There's a disincentive to make improvements after a certain point. And the tax is not on profits, it's on the gross. We could possibly make it with more gaming positions, but we're limited to 1200. And now it's at a ridiculous level--70 percent. The state feels we're making more money than we should be allowed to make. And yet the nine boats in Illinois pay more in taxes than all of the casinos in Nevada pay to Nevada. Last year the boats here paid $660 million. This casino paid $110 million of that. It will be more this year. And after a while you're just stuck, there's nothing you can do. You stop building."

There are two other Hollywood casinos--built by the Pratt family in Tunica, Mississippi, for the Memphis market, and Shreveport, Louisiana, for the Dallas market--but the Aurora property has always done the most business. For the first time, though, the other two are now considered better investments, being located in states that are enthusiastically pro-gambling, unlike Illinois, which seems conflicted about it.

"The way we ended up in Aurora," says Ed Pratt, "is that Illinois law said that Cook County had to be kept out of it. There was to be no gambling in Cook County. Chicago got its convention center, and the thinking was that that was their reward and now let's take care of the lesser cities. So we just said 'We want to be as close to Cook County as is legal.' Actually Elgin is equally near to Cook County." (Both are about one-hour drives from downtown Chicago.)

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who was originally behind the "no casinos in Cook County" rule, has recently changed his thinking, though, so the outlying casinos might be hit hard a third time, by slot machines at race tracks and possibly even a city-owned Chicago casino on Lake Michigan.

Nevertheless, the Hollywood was booming from the day it opened, and it's been on a growth curve ever since. The terrorist attacks of 9/11, which devastated Las Vegas in many ways, had the opposite effect on riverboat casinos. People who were afraid to fly stayed home instead and gambled with the locals.

The Hollywood, as its name implies, has a movie studio theme and resembles an art deco movie palace of the 1930s. The facilities are full of memorabilia--but not just any memorabilia. The Hollywood management owns 6,000 items of memorabilia and trades it back and forth with the studios all the time. At the Shreveport property, for example, I saw both Dorothy's ruby slippers from "The Wizard of Oz" and the motorcycle from "Easy Rider." On the day I toured the Aurora property, they had the dress worn by Sharon Stone in "Casino," the Mirthmobile from "Wayne's World," and Marlon Brando's car from "The Godfather." The Fairbanks Steakhouse, their high-end dining venue, is decorated with items from the collection of swashbuckling swordsman Douglas Fairbanks Sr., including his cape from "Zorro." (The entire Fairbanks estate was purchased by the company.) The Epic Buffet features 3-D sets built by Paramount.

Still, because of the restrictions of Illinois law, the Hollywood doesn't have the sheer gambling action of its counterparts in Louisiana and Mississippi. It's basically a female-friendly slot-machine joint, with only 32 table games and nothing very exotic for the serious gambler. (The card players all go to the Horseshoe Casino, across the border in Hammond, Indiana.)

"The majority of the players," says Medchill, "are from the western suburbs, with a lot of women slots players with $45,000 income or more. That means we do a lot of direct-mail marketing."

Direct-mail marketing is a euphemism for . . . coupons.

The Hollywood still has the most ambitious entertainment policy of any casino in Chicagoland, promoting 12 shows a year at the 1888-seat Paramount, most of them time-honored casino acts-- Harvey Korman, Tony Bennett, Tim Conway, Jackie Mason, Don Rickles, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Carrot Top, Frankie Avalon. They also sponsor a lot of special events for premium players like cigar parties and fashion shows, and they're the only Chicagoland casino that hosts boxing events. With the hotel project on hold, VIP players are treated to rooms at the nearby Comfort Suites.

Unfortunately, they're not allowed to give away alcohol-- another peculiar Illinois-only rule--and they have an "understanding" with the gaming board that they must close for at least two hours a day. (They chose 6:30 to 8:30 a.m.) Medchill says they'll soldier on, no matter what the Illinois legislature throws at them, but the future of the Hollywood is looking less and less like "Wall Street" and more and more like "Gone with the Wind."

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© Copyright 2003 United Press International and Joe Bob Briggs

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