Illinois sees over $430 Million Bet in October
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Illinois sports betting is continuing its boom with another huge jump in revenue. The state’s betting handle increased 42% to $435 million in October and will most likely see continual growth in the coming months.
Illinois also had the fourth-highest betting handle in the U.S., only trailing New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The state should compete monthly with Pennsylvania for the third-largest sports betting market once Illinois matures. The Land of Lincoln launched sports betting in March of this year before COVID-19 shut down the state.
In the spring, Gov. J.B. Pritzker allowed mobile betting registration instead of in-person registration. Since then, people have created sports betting accounts from home instead of at the sportsbook, and the state’s betting industry has taken off since.
Five sportsbooks are operating in the state, and Illinois should see more enter the state in 2021.
Illinois by the Numbers
Illinois reported a $435 million betting handle in October, along with seeing $42.2 million in revenue, and the state collected $6.3 million in taxes.
Mobile sports betting has also been a huge boost to the Illinois market. The state is seeing 90% of the bets coming in via mobile devices. Gov. Pritzker has reduced casinos’ capacity to 25%, and some had to close their doors temporarily.
$355.7 million came from professional sports, which was 81% of the handle. A little over $78 million came from college sports, and $250K of the handle was auto racing.
The state benefitted from football and college basketball this past month and should see growth in professional sports. The NBA is returning on December 22, which will bring in a lot of bets in the sport and the Chicago Bulls.
DraftKings also sees more of the betting handle as it surpassed BetRivers for the largest professional sports handle. FanDuel is also not too far behind DraftKings and BetRivers for third and should continue to grow its handle after moving to Fairmount Racetrack last month. This will allow the sportsbook to take advantage of the St. Louis market.
$500 Million in December?
Illinois has been making huge jumps since July with its betting handle. The state jumped from $52.5 million in July, $140 million in August, $305.2 million in September, and now $435 million in October.
With more Illinoians creating sports betting accounts, the numbers are going to continue to grow exponentially. There is a legit shot for Illinois to pass the $500 million betting handle mark and even see close to $600 million to finish 2020.
If Illinois sees over $500 million in bets in December, the state will also have a $1 billion betting handle in 2020. The state launched sports betting in March before being shut down due to COVID-19. Things picked back up in July when mobile registration was available, and the state has taken off.
Illinois is already a top-five sports betting market in the U.S. and will only grow even more. With Chicago and Cook County being a huge cash cow, as more residents start betting, it will continue to compete with Pennsylvania and potentially compete with the top dogs of Nevada and New Jersey.
Hitting $1 billion in the first year of launch in a pandemic with only five and half good months of sports betting, Illinois looks like an up-and-coming state moving forward.
