After being open for a year, Wind Creek Chicago Southland has become an important part of how dozens of neighborhoods pay for basic infrastructure. As part of its license, the casino had to share its profits with 41 towns in the south and southwest suburbs. These towns have each gotten just over $118,000 from the casino’s first year of business. East Hazel Crest and the neighborhood next door, Homewood, are getting even bigger shares because they are hosting the property.
At the same time, legal gambling in the U.S. is shifting online. Wind Creek’s dollars flow into very specific towns, but regulated online casinos for US players channel their tax revenue into bigger state-level pots. This ranges from New Jersey’s iGaming funds that help support public services to Michigan’s online casino taxes that boost the School Aid Fund and city budgets. Moreover, the online appeal is manifold. There’s an abundance of games that brick-and-mortar casinos can only dream of. Transactions are lightning-fast with diverse options. And most importantly, players don’t have to get out of the house to get the full gambling experience.
How Wind Creek’s Revenue Gets Sliced Up
Wind Creek Chicago Southland opened in November 2024 as one of Illinois’ newest full-scale casinos. According to the rule that gave it its license, it has to give back to nearby communities 5% of its adjusted gross receipts.
In practice, 2% of the money made goes to East Hazel Crest and Homewood, which are the two host towns that share the casino’s territory. The gaming floor is in East Hazel Crest and the parking structure is in Homewood. The last three percent is split evenly among 43 municipalities in the Southland area, including these two hosts, and is given out every month.
That method gave each of the 41 non-host towns $118,154.10 by early November 2025. East Hazel Crest and Homewood got more because they also got a bigger piece of the “host” pie.
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Leaders in the area say the checks are nice, but not amazing. For example, in Flossmoor, officials are putting their share of the money toward redoing the roads. It can cost around $500,000 to rebuild a mile of street and fix up the sidewalks and curbs. That means that the roughly $100,000 they made from the casino is enough to pay for a quarter-mile of road work that they would have had to wait for or bond for otherwise.
Scholarships, Hospitals, and the Southland Public Benefit Fund
On top of the legal rules for sharing income, the host communities negotiated an extra level of community support. East Hazel Crest and Homewood have promised to put half of their gaming income from the first four years into a Southland Public Benefit Fund that helps the whole area, instead of keeping all of it for themselves.
The Poarch Band of Creek Indians, which owns the casino, has promised to put $2 million into the fund every year for the first five years, for a total of $10 million.
Public records show that this money will be used to help South Suburban Hospital and Ingalls Hospital in Harvey, as well as to give scholarships to low-income students at three local community schools.
The benefit fund had grown to more than $3 million by late 2025, while East Hazel Crest’s income from the casino and taxes was about $2.25 million, split 55/45 between East Hazel Crest and Homewood.
Officials in the area say that the first year has been “very positive,” with new jobs, new tax dollars, and, so far, not much noticeable social unrest. This is happening while debates about problem gambling and the state’s economic reliance on casinos continue in the statehouse.
A Fast Climb Up Illinois’ Casino Rankings
From November 2024 to October 2025, monthly revenue reports show that Wind Creek made about $186.7 million in gross revenue. This made it the second most profitable of the 16 casinos in the state, after Rivers Casino Des Plaines, which made more than $500 million in adjusted gross receipts during the same time period.
When you look at the big picture, these numbers help show why Illinois’ overall State Gaming Fund payment went from $158 million in FY 2024 to $186 million in FY 2025. The increase happened despite the average effective casino tax rate going down because of changes to the graduated tax structure. New casinos like Wind Creek and Hard Rock Casino Rockford have brought in enough new money to make up for the lower rate.
