Bally’s will never deliver the $1.7 billion casino and entertainment complex in River West by a state-mandated September 2026 deadline — and may not have the financial wherewithal to build the project at all.

That’s the bleak assessment from one of the nation’s foremost experts on a gaming industry in free fall.

Alan Woinski is the CEO of Gaming USA Corp. and editor of the Gaming Industry Daily Report.

He has watched Detroit and New Orleans struggle to complete their ambitious casino projects. And in Chicago, he said he believes the financial hurdles now confronting Bally’s — including an $800 million construction funding gap and a buyout offer from its largest shareholder that’s roughly half of what it was two years ago — are infinitely worse.

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