Why would we cut the mob in?

If you play a long shot in poker, you'd better be ready for a losing hand.

With legislation that Gov. Quinn signed Friday to amend the 2009 Video Gaming Act, Illinois is playing a long shot: that organized crime won't creep into the newly authorized video gaming industry.

Theoretically, this law could prove a winner for Illinois, just as you can theoretically win a poker hand with a pair of deuces.

Problem is, the odds against you are pretty steep.

The new law welcomes into the new video gaming industry people who have been operating illegal video poker games in taverns all along.

Not surprisingly, seeing that what they have been doing is illegal, many of these people are close associates of the mob.

The law -- supported by Joseph Berrios, the Cook County Democratic Party Chairman, nominee for Cook County assessor and lobbyist for the Illinois Coin Machine Operators -- does bar people with state gambling convictions.

But as Aaron Jaffe, chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board, likes to point out, most organized crime figures don't have gambling convictions on their records.

In a state where you hear stories of Downstate sheriffs playing the illegal games themselves, local law enforcement simply hasn't gone after the illegal operators. Instead, where there has been any kind of crackdown, violators have been hit only with small fines and liquor license hassles -- nothing that would preclude them from running video poker under the new law.

Jaffe thinks the best way to keep organized crime out of the newly legalized business is to deny the video gaming licenses to people who have ignored the law all along.

"Once you let them [organized crime] in, it's hard to get them out," Jaffe says.

Well, we're letting them in.

So good luck down the road trying to get them out.

It doesn't look like we've dealt ourselves a very good hand.