Nearly one month after signing an expansive gaming bill, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker named Springfield attorney Charles Schmadeke as chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board and Boeing Senior Counsel Anthony Garcia as the fifth board member. The state Senate must confirm both appointments.
The board will select operators for six new casinos, slots and table games at the state’s three horse-racing tracks and a new south suburban racino, and oversee more video gambling machines and sports betting.
Schmadeke is partner-in-charge at the Springfield office of law firm Hinshaw & Culbertson. He was general counsel in then-Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes’ office until 2002; currently Hynes is one of Pritzker’s four deputy governors. Schmadeke also was chief of the general law bureau in the Illinois attorney general’s office.
At Boeing, Garcia oversees internal investigations involving alleged violations of anti-corruption laws. He also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago and an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency.
