Judge deals blow to owner of Cicero diner, won't reverse revocation of video gambling license

More than seven months after the Illinois Gaming Board revoked a license that had allowed Jeffrey Bertucci’s Cicero diner to operate video gambling devices and pay out winnings, he was dealt another blow to his potential cash flow.

Cook County Judge David B. Atkins ruled Friday that the gaming board had been within its rights to strip away the license from Bertucci’s Firebird Enterprises, Inc., operator of a 24-hour Steak N Egger franchise at 5647 W. Ogden Ave. in the near western suburb.

The ruling tanked Firebird’s legal efforts to reverse the July 31 revocation, at least for now, though Bertucci can appeal.

His lawyers had no immediate comment.

A spokeswoman for the gaming board said the state government agency, which ultimately reports to Gov. JB Pritzker, “is pleased with the Circuit Court of Cook County’s ruling which reaffirms the IGB’s authority to ensure the integrity and safety of gaming as well as those who operate within it.”

In 2023 the Chicago Sun-Times discovered the gaming board had licensed Firebird in 2019 nine years after Bertucci testified under a grant of immunity at a federal racketeering trial that targeted reputed mobsters and members of the notorious Outlaws Motorcycle Club.

Bertucci admitted on the stand that, before video gambling was legalized in Illinois, he’d been involved in a mobbed-up video gambling operation that illegally paid out winnings to patrons.

That could have been enough to deny him a video gambling license when he applied later, as one of the gaming board’s main tasks is to ensure the integrity of the industry and keep out even the hint of mob influence.

But regulators licensed him anyway.

When the Sun-Times began asking questions in 2023, regulators said they hadn’t known about Bertucci’s testimony, even though it was reported in 2010 in the media.

The gaming board quickly proposed pulling Firebird’s license, but Bertucci appealed, setting a two-year administrative process in motion — during which he was allowed to keep operating his video gambling devices and rake in money.

More than $200,000 in “net terminal income” was collected during that two-year period.

Last year, an administrative judge sided with Firebird, saying that had Bertucci come clean about the full extent of his illicit gambling actions when he initially applied for a video gambing license, the gaming board would’ve awarded it anyway.

The gaming board pushed back on that point and pushed ahead on the revocation — which meant Bertucci’s machines were soon turned off.

Among other problems, Bertucci initially “lied to federal agents and the grand jury during the federal investigation” he later testified for, the gaming board wrote in its revocation order.

He also “partnered with known members of organized crime to engage in illegal gambling.”

Given all this, “we conclude that Respondent could not have demonstrated its suitability for licensure had these facts been known” at the time of licensing, agency officials said.

In awarding a license, the gaming board has to consider whether an applicant’s “background, including criminal record, reputation and associations, is not injurious to the public health, safety, morals, good order and general welfare of the people of the State of Illinois.”

Firebird sued, saying the gaming board “was aware” of Bertucci’s past “when it granted Plaintiff a license.”

The agency’s decision to revoke the license “was erroneous and contrary to law because” the gaming board, also known as the IGB, “granted Plaintiff’s establishment license in January of 2019 and repeatedly renewed Plaintiff’s license in January of 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 even after the IGB was demonstrably aware of the very facts it claims not to have known when the license was first granted.”

Firebird’s lawsuit also asserted Bertucci was never “convicted of a crime related to illegal gambling or Grey Games,” the latter a term sometimes used to describe illicit payouts from gaming terminals in bars and restaurants.

That’s important, Bertucci’s suit says, because as the administrative judge earlier observed, “the Legislature had chosen to limit” the gaming board’s “discretion to deny licensure to applicants who ‘facilitated, enabled, or participated in the use of’ Grey Games by narrowly defining ‘facilitated, enabled, or participated in the use of’ to mean actually convicted [emphasis from lawsuit] of illegal gambling.”

Atkins ultimately rejected Firebird’s arguments and wrote in his order:

“It is well settled that findings of fact by an administrative agency are considered to be prima facie true and correct, and courts will not interfere with the discretionary authority of administrative bodies unless the administrative decision is against the manifest weight of the evidence, or is exercised in an arbitrary and capricious manner."