A Gambling Man
It wasn’t easy. The bet was enormous and placed over nearly a decade—almost 10 years spent pursuing the elusive 10th Illinois gaming license, and the ante kept being upped. At one point, Bluhm had to put millions of dollars of his own money on the table just to stay in the game. “It was a long struggle,” says Bluhm with a little laugh. “But we hung in there. We were tenacious. We always believed this was a great site and a great opportunity, and we had staying power.”

  Neil Bluhm

The “great site” is Des Plaines—a close-in western suburb of Chicago. The “great opportunity” turned into the Rivers Casino, which opened in July to rave reviews. And the “staying power” would be Bluhm himself, billionaire real estate developer, cofounder of JMB Realty Corporation and cofounder and managing partner of Walton St. Capital, number 221 on the Forbes 400 list.

If you are curious as to the environment that surrounds a businessman at this level, consider from whence he is talking—the elegant 900 North Michigan Avenue building. It would be a fancy enough address to occupy as a tenant, but Bluhm isn’t a tenant. He built it. When you come to visit, there is no elaborate, ego-gratifying backlit bronze sign announcing the name of the company, just an expanse of exotic wood. The people who work here know who they are, and Bluhm is a private man with no interest in talking about himself.

“I just don’t feel like bragging,” he says. “I’d rather talk about the casino.” So, let’s talk about the casino. A decade of finagling—did he ever give up hope? “We felt it was worth the time, effort, and financial risk,” says Bluhm, adding that several aspects to the deal were in his favor.

“We didn’t have to buy the land [right away],” he says.

“The landowners were very cooperative because it was basically office buildings and one industrial building, and the property was worth more as a casino site—probably in part due to a weak leasing market—so they were willing to continue to give us an option for a long period of time. That was the key.”

The sticking point was not so much business as political issues, a saga begun nearly 15 years ago, when the Silver Eagle Casino, outside of Galena, shut down, touching off a mad scramble to grab its license to gamble, one of 10 permitted by law in the state of Illinois. For a time it seemed like Rosemont’s Emerald Casino project would emerge on top, but allegations of mob involvement, along with other misdeeds by investors and builders, scuttled the plan. In 2008 Bluhm won out over two other finalists, bidding $125 million to win the license.