In October 2020, while the rest of us were locked down in our homes and worried sick, a 47-year-old hedge fund investor named Soo Kim decided to go shopping. For $20 million — chump change in the casino business — he bought the brand name Bally’s from Caesar’s Entertainment. Instead of Twin River Worldwide Holdings, which sounds like a chain of campgrounds, Kim could now rebrand his hedge fund’s casino purchases with one of the most storied names in the entertainment and leisure industries.

Had Kim not made that shrewd purchase, it’s unlikely that he would have flown into town from Providence, Rhode Island, this week, or that Mayor Lori Lightfoot would have announced Kim’s company as the beneficiary of a massive new casino development on the site of where this and other newspapers are printed in Chicago’s River West neighborhood. In the process, City Hall shafted the casino interests of Neil Bluhm, a successful industry investor with a long commitment to the Chicago and Illinois.

No doubt the name Bally’s provided city officials with a degree of comfort. No leisure brand has a longer Chicago history.

The company had its roots in making pinball machines here, even taking its name from its first game, “Ballyhoo,” of which it sold 50,000 units at $16.50 apiece. Founded in 1932 by Raymond Hood, a whiz when it came to mechanical slot machines, Bally’s went on to become Bally’s Entertainment and got involved in video games, theme parks, health clubs and they even acquired Midway Manufacturing, the storied games maker in Schiller Park.

The most famous Bally’s casino was, of course, its namesake property on the Las Vegas Strip, which served many Chicagoans on 1980s vacations. All of that Chicago-based history lasted until 1996, when Hilton Hotels bought the company and further sales and spinoffs resulted in the brand name being put up for sale.

Bally’s opponents in the great Chicago casino bidding contest have been at pains to point out two truths: 1), Bally’s is Bally’s in name only, and 2) so far, it only has acquired casinos and not built massive ones from scratch.

“What could possibly go wrong?” they have asked, meaning plenty.

Both of those observations are true but Samir Mayekar, deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development, who led this project, told the editorial board Thursday that he thought Bally’s opponents were trumped by the advantages of the Bally’s bid: most notably, the amount of money it is expected to raise for the city’s strapped fire and police pension funds, sweetened by Kim’s upfront $40 million payment to the city.

According to Chicago’s CFO, Jennie Huang Bennett, the casino is projected to bring in $200 million a year into city coffers when it opens in the first quarter of 2026, with Kim throwing in another $4 million per year. The news Thursday also included an unexpected location for a temporary casino, projected to open in the third quarter of 2023: the Medinah Temple building (recently a Bloomingdale’s home store) at 600 N. Wabash Ave., most likely a surprise to residents living around there.

Other factors in favor of the Bally’s bid surely included Kim’s shrewd embrace of union labor in a union town, the proximity of the casino to relatively wealthy neighborhoods in Chicago (and away from vulnerable low-income communities), and the potential to revitalize River West, a laggard when compared to River North, Wicker Park and the booming, adjacent West Loop.

Clearly, the low-rise Flaming Wok on Halsted Street and the crumbling Greyhound Maintenance Center are not long for this world in their current location. Nor is the huge building from which this editorial is being written, although part of the deal includes the obligation to relocate this newspaper’s offices and printing plant.

All of the casinos had drawn neighborhood objection, although Bally’s bid had at least the lukewarm support of the most relevant alderman, Walter Burnett Jr., 27th, who clearly figured out the gambling emporium was a fait accompli. It served him better to make nice with City Hall and go along with the deal.

Bally’s was our second choice of the five bids. This editorial board preferred the bid at the so-called The 78, partly on the grounds that it came from a proven operator with genuine local ties and a track record of success, partly because it disrupted few immediate neighbors, and partly because it would have extended the downtown tourist and entertainment district to the south.

It’s also hard to believe Kim’s assurances that traffic flows along Chicago Avenue and Halsted only will be improved by the casino, with its hotel, restaurants and live entertainment venue. This particular slice of Chicago, hemmed in by a river, bridges and train tracks, is not an easy candidate for megadevelopment.

Mayekar assured us Thursday that the city’s modeling determined that casinos can be part of “live, work and play districts that can live in harmony.” He also expressed confidence in the experience level of those Kim has hired to join his team.

What now? Kim has to live up to all of his promises.

He has to build the hotel, the entertainment venues, the restaurants and, yes, that lucrative casino floor on time. He has to be a good neighbor in a neighborhood that will see drastic change. He has to start thinking about keeping crime and violence not just out of this casino but off the surrounding blocks. And he has to ensure that one of the most notable public assets here — the extension of the Riverwalk — is done right.

To say this is an important development for this city is to understate. Most importantly, as we have often said, Kim has to build the kind of leisure destination of which Chicagoans can be proud and where they will take their guests. Its architectural design will be crucial. If Kim skimps or cheapens the deal, that projected revenue will fall away. Gamblers, diners and concertgoers have many choices.

Of course, the big casino rollout Thursday undermined other news — and not just by a Wall Street collapse suggesting disposable capital that might find its way to a casino is vanishing fast.

There also was a Wall Street Journal report that Boeing Co. is planning to move its headquarters from Chicago to Virginia, apparently to be close to government interests, despite the presence of United Airlines, one of its biggest customers, in the Loop, not to mention O’Hare International Airport, scene of another costly megadevelopment.

The Boeing news was flat-out lousy for the city, especially given all the economic and public safety struggles of the Loop.

A casino is, of course, no replacement for the headquarters of a major international corporation when it comes to the long-term future of this city.

But that’s not on Kim or his “Bally’s.” He just has to come through and give the city, and those who have trusted him, a big win.

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