Rivers tops area casinos in crime reports

A 54-year-old patron of Rivers Casino in Des Plaines arrived on an unseasonably warm early morning in January 2023 only to be greeted by someone sticking a gun in his face in the parking lot.

The victim was patted down, robbed and driven across the street in his own Prius to a Rosemont parking garage and left there — as the robber, with at least one alleged accomplice, took off, according to police records.

The offenders were soon arrested, and the victim wasn’t physically harmed in the robbery — one of several at the northwest suburban gambling destination that year, according to a Chicago Sun-Times examination that found that while violent crime isn’t terribly common at Chicago area casinos, thefts, fights and other nuisance crime are.

Rivers — the state’s busiest and most profitable casino, located in the shadows of O’Hare Airport — had the most reported crime of the eight casinos in Chicago and the suburbs, with more than 1,500 crimes logged from 2020 to early this year out of roughly 3,800 reported at those casinos by the Illinois Gaming Board, according to records from the government agency.

For the full story, go to chicago.suntimes.com.