Illinois Online Betting

Illinois is home to numerous legal, regulated gaming options both online and in-person. In the physical realm, you’ll find riverboat casinos, racetracks and a lottery. Online betting can be controlled with an assortment of horse racing gambling websites and fantasy sports websites.
Sports betting can be on its way to Illinois after a significant gaming reform bill has been approved by the legislature and signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker at mid-2019. Under that legislation, in-person and mobile sportsbooks are licensed to take a full assortment of sports wagers from anyone 21 or older and physically located within state lines.
As it stands right now, Illinois is on its way to becoming a gaming powerhouse between its large population and wide variety of legal gambling options. The accession of online sports betting is especially notable as that will enthusiasts across the nation easy access to safe and legal wagering.
Online Betting Sites in Illinois
Online sports gambling is currently legal in Illinois, but it will be a while before the first programs are approved to accept wagers from the general public. Meanwhile, horse racing and fantasy sports sites and the online lottery are legal and supply a similar encounter.
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Horse racing, fantasy sports websites and also the nation lottery can offer their services in Illinois provided they have the right licensing to do so. Each would-be gaming site must get special approval from the state gaming board before it may legally accept wagers from country residents.
One online sports betting operator has booked its place in the Illinois marketplace up to now. Just days following the IL sports gambling law has been approved, Australian firm PointsBet.com announced a partnership with Hawthorne Race Course to build a retail sportsbook in the monitor, offer betting through numerous off-track betting locations and to launch a mobile program.
FanDuel and DraftKings are very likely to join the fray at Illinois at some point a nicely, but has detailed any plans it has for the nation. As further operators reveal their strategies, we’ll update this page together with key info.
Horse Racing
The Illinois Racing Board maintains a current list of betting websites that are allowed to take wagers over the net from residents. The current list consists of TVG, BetAmerica, TwinSpires and a few others.
My personal recommendation would be to go with TVG or BetAmerica. These are the greatest and most well-known sites on the listing and have the most racing betting choices.
Illinois also permits off-track betting (OTB) at particular locations throughout the state. As its name implies, OTB facilities enable you to place wagers on horse races in locations other than the true racetrack. Each monitor may authorize a certain number of OTB locations for a total of 43 potential facilities. Currently, 27 OTB centers are active. You may see the complete list .
Legal Illinois Sports Betting
Illinois legalized in-persona and cellular sports betting with a law passed in June 2019. After the House and Senate issued his stamps of approval, Governor J.B. Pritzker added his signature to flip the bill into the law of the land.
Under SB 690 (starting on page 227), Illinois will issue licenses to casinos, racetracks and professional sports stadiums to operate mobile sportsbooks to take wagers in person in addition to mobile betting apps to accept wagers online.
Online operators like FanDuel, DraftKings and PointsBet may either partner with a local land-based sportsbook operator or apply for one of those three online-only licenses which will be issued under the new law.
Now, it’s just a matter of time as state regulators draw up rules regulating the industry, review applications from interested sports betting suppliers and issue the go-ahead for accredited operators to start accepting wagers.
The pending IL sports betting law does have its troublesome areas such as high licensing fees and requiring in-person registration for the initial 18 weeks, but overall it could be considered a triumph for sports fans. It is always welcome news if a country finally gets around to controlling and taxing an action that was taking place underground via local bookies and overseas betting sites.
Mobile Sports Betting at Illinois
Casinos, racetracks and stadiums that acquire sports gambling licenses are going to have the ability to launch mobile apps under their own brand names. Casinos and racetracks will be able to accept customers from throughout the country while stadiums will have a 5-block radius where they may accept wagers through mobile programs.
There are two important provisions related to mobile betting in IL that will inconvenience some bettors, but these issues will likely be solved with the passing of time.
First, customers will be required to register in-person with a certified sportsbook before betting online. This usually means you’ll need to visit a nearby casino or racetrack to register for an account and confirm your identity. As soon as you get that from the way, you’ll be able to bet at your convenience from a certified mobile app.
Secondly, individual online-only operators will probably be banned from entering the marketplace for the first 18 months unless they associate with a local casino. When an internet operator chooses to go that path, it is required by law to operate under the brand name of the land-based casino.
Online operators might also choose to wait 18 months then apply for one of three mobile betting licenses. Operators that choose to go that path will be permitted to operate under their own brand names, but they will be playing catchup after sitting out for a year and a half.
The fantastic news is both terms are set to expire after 18 months. Eventually, you are going to have the ability to register online from any place in the state and place wagers via sites including FanDuel and DraftKings if they haven’t already partnered with a local casino or racetrack.
Illinois Sportsbooks
Under the new sports gambling law, Illinois casinos and racetracks will be permitted to use for sports betting licenses. These licenses will authorize the construction of in-person sportsbooks and the launch of mobile gambling apps.
Licensing fees for casinos and racetracks are set to be priced based on 5% of each operator adjusted gross receipts but max out at $10 million. Expensive or not, most if not all the state’s casinos are very likely to apply for licenses. Pennsylvania established a likewise expensive licensing strategy and even though PA casinos initially balked at paying that much to provide what is basically a low-revenue kind of gaming, they ended up applying for permits one .
Sportsbooks in Stadiums
One of the more unique areas of the IL sports gambling law is a provision allowing up to seven sports stadiums to apply for permits to run sportsbooks. Stadiums that obtain these permits will be allowed to take wagers in-person too through mobile devices inside a five-block radius.
Sports Betting Kiosks
The Illinois Lottery has also been authorized to enter the sports gambling company to a limited degree. Under the new law, the IL Lottery could place around 2,500 sports gambling kiosks throughout the country over the initial year of the law being in effect. After that, the lottery could place an additional 2,500 kiosks within the course of the next year to bring the total to 5,000 machines.
IL Lottery betting kiosks will not be permitted to offer full-fledged sports gambling; they may only offer parlay-style wagers. The details of precisely how those wagers would work still need to get exercised, however, the basic gist with parlays is gamers must pick the results of two games in return for receiving better payout odds than wagering on just a single match.
Key Illinois Sports Betting Rules
The Illinois Gaming Board and Department of Lottery are tasked with drawing up regulations as needed to enforce the brand new sports gambling law, but the legislation itself also includes a range of key rules that we know will be set up once the first sportsbooks and gambling websites go live.
In-person sportsbooks authorized? Yes
Mobile and online sports betting authorized? Yes
Where will gambling occur? Casinos, racetracks and sports stadiums may apply for permits to run in-person sportsbooks and also to Provide online betting
Sports gambling kiosks: Illinois Lottery may operate up to 5,000 kiosks that will accept parlay-style wagers just Minimum age to wager on sports at IL: 21
Limited Events: No wagers permitted on Illinois school teams, minor league occasions and K-12 events Restricted Wagers: Pro sports teams may request the Illinois Gaming Board to prohibit certain Kinds of wagers If They’re worried such wagers can impact the integrity of their games Data Mandate: Licensed operators need to purchase official information in the leagues such as settling in-play wagers
Tax rate: 15% on adjusted gross sports wagering receipts
Additional local taxation: An additional 2% tax will be collected from operators situated in counties with a population in excess of 3 million. Money collected from this tax will go to support which county’s criminal justice system.
Self-exclusion: The Illinois Gaming Board and also Department of the Lottery shall Establish a voluntary self-exclusion program for people Who Would like to restrict themselves from wagering
Past Efforts to Legalize Sports Betting at IL
Illinois’ most up-to-date move to legalize sports gambling is not the nation’s first attempt — lawmakers and business stakeholders have been contemplating the problem for quite some time.
The two bills were introduced 2018 seeking to legalize sports betting in case the Supreme Court overturned the federal prohibition (which it did). HB 4214 was a very simple placeholder bill while SB 2478 could have created the Sports Betting Consumer Protection Act.
SB 2478 lacked details regarding regulations, licensing requirements and tax rates and passed the forming of regulations on to some state agency. Which bureau that could have been left unsaid in the bill, but that too was decided at a later point. The purpose in the brief term was to simply end the state-level prohibition of sports betting and then find out the rest later.
A reading of the full text of this bill shows the authors also pictured online sports gambling being legalized. The bill referred to”digital” sports gambling no more than 29 times as a potential form of betting that would be regulated by the state agency finally assigned to regulate the industry.
The support of local casinos helped improve the odds of sports betting coming to Illinois, but casinos were a bit slower to talk on the situation. However, Arlington Racecourse sounded open to this thought as it advised the Daily Herald it would Prefer a casino to go with sports gambling:
“If we’re treated equally with the casinos and we’ve table and slots games,” Arlington GM Tony Petrillo said,”and then we have sports gambling, that is a venture that would be quite plausible for this land.”
The 2018 attempts to legalize IL sports gambling failed to yield outcomes in the brief term, but new laws enacted in 2019 built on those initial attempts to turn that dream into a reality. Early disappointments have finally turned into action with lawmakers eventually getting fully on board with lawful sports gambling.
Fantasy Sports
Real money fantasy sports gambling is legal at the national level thanks to an exemption from the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. The UIGEA determined fantasy sports for a competition of skill rather than luck since gambling outcomes don’t depend on a single game or the performance of an individual player.
State laws also welcome dream sports so all of the major US companies offering fantasy betting are readily available to residents. You are welcome to register, deposit and win real cash at any of the sites listed above.
If you are not familiar with daily fantasy betting, this is a sort of wagering in which you select from all of the players in the league (it could be NFL, MLB, NBA, etc.) and draft a team of about 9 people based on the game. A digital salary limit is enforced, which forces you to make tough decisions when determining how to meet your roster.
As soon as you have a team, all you need to do is wait patiently for this week’s games to play in the actual world. When the real players score points and collect stats in the real world, your dream team earns points. At the end of it all, the person whose fantasy team has the most points wins the competition.
You’re able to play in tiny contests in which you pit your team against a single opponent, medium contests with 4, 3 or even 20 opponents or enormous tournaments with hundreds or even thousands of other men and women. Your goal is to make as many points with your staff as possible and acquire a real money payout.
Illinois has an interesting bit of case law history concerning fantasy sports. In 2013, New York resident Chris Langone introduced a suit against FanDuel.com in Illinois court. He sought to claim more than $500,000 in earnings from FanDuel and one of its clients under an older Illinois legislation known as the Illinois reduction Act.
The Loss Act is a classic bit of anti-gambling legislation that makes gambling losses recoverable from the failure if the losses amount to more than $50. If half an hour pass and the sufferer doesn’t assert the losses, anybody can recover those losses in court. Here’s the important Part of the law:
(a) Any person who by betting shall lose to some other person, any amount of money or item of value, amounting to the sum of $50 or more and shall pay or deliver the same or any part thereof, may sue for and recover the cash or other thing of value, therefore lost and paid or delivered, at a civil action against the winner thereof, together with costs, in the circuit court…
(b) If within 6 months, such person who under the terms of Subsection 28-8(a) is entitled to initiate action to recoup his losses does not in fact pursue his treatment, any person may commence a civil action against the winner. The court or the jury, as the case may be, shall ascertain the total amount of the loss. Following such determination, the court shall enter a judgment of triple the amount so determined.
The suit was eventually thrown out because of Langone failing to satisfy the minimal threshold of recoverable money and since FanDuel itself cannot be considered a”winner of gaming” because it simply functions as a middleman between bettors.
Are dream sports legal in Illinois?
The major fantasy sports sites all function in Illinois and the state is home to several people who perform daily, but the legality of DFS has not yet been fully, 100% settled with laws. Back in December of 2015, Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued an impression that daily dream sports violate Illinois law, but no further action was taken and the significant DFS sites have continued to function publicly since then.
Some lawmakers have also sought to push legislation which would legalize and regulate daily fantasy sports or outlaw the activity altogether. House Bill 4323 introduced 2015 and debated in 2016 would have officially legalized fantasy sports with the invention of the Fantasy Sports Contest Act, but that bill has been shelved in 2016 and eventually died altogether in ancient 2017.
A separate bill additionally introduced in 2016 sought to move things in the opposite direction and categorize the operation of a dream website for a crime. Luckily, that charge also expired in early 2017.
As it stands today, daily fantasy sports are neither explicitly legal nor illegal in Illinois. The present status quo works well for players and operators, but it’ll be nice to finally see the issue firmly settled one way or the other.
Many DFS legalization bills have been introduced in the intervening years, but none have made it into legislation. Early 2018 saw some action on a fantasy sports invoice, but excitement for this bill expired and there have been no major changes since. Regardless of the AG’s 2015 opinion that DFS sites run afoul of Illinois gambling law, the significant daily dream sites do accept customers the nation.
Lottery
Illinois was the first state to take its lottery into the internet after a federal judge ruled that it would be legal for states to achieve that. The IL Online Lottery went reside in 2012 and the website enables residents to make an account and purchase individual tickets for Powerball, Mega Millions and Lotto.
Any state resident 18 or older may register an account and buy tickets or sign up for subscriptions for automatic buys. Winnings under $600 are credited directly to your lottery account and might subsequently be pulled straight to your bank accounts. If you win more than $600, the nation lottery claims department will contact you with instructions for claiming your cash.
Here is something else interesting: the Illinois lottery is largely responsible for nations now having the authority to legalize online gambling and poker. In 2009, Illinois and New York requested the Department of Justice to clarify its stance on the Wire Act of 1961. Both states had plans to sell tickets on line but were unsure whether this plan will run afoul of federal law.
It took the Dept. of Justice two decades to react but it had been worth every second of the wait. Not only did the DOJ approve of online lotteries, but it dominated the Wire Act applies only to sports betting. This decision is what paved the way for countries like New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware to legalize online casino games and poker.
Internet Poker and Casinos in Illinois
Illinois has been flirting with the idea of online gambling legalization for years now. 1 effort came in 2013 when a significant rewrite of the state’s gambling laws contained a bit about playing, regulating and taxing online poker and casino games. Legislators yanked the part about online gaming before the bill has been passed the following month.
For a time after the 2013 bill failed, there was no word or indication that online gambling would return to Illinois any time soon besides Senate President John Cullerton once calling internet gambling inevitable. If the people of Illinois are going to be gambling and playing poker online anyways, why should not the state get a cut? It would be better to regulate it, enact much better defenses for players and keep those tax dollars stateside. This was the basic argument anyways.
Cullerton’s effort to incorporate online gambling to the 2013 bill ultimately failed, but he says he is not out yet. He’ll continue to push the thought and make something happen for the players of Illinois. He also said that internet gaming probably will not come to Illinois until lawmakers finalize and enact legislation to permit the construction of new land-based casinos at the nation.
In the long run, he said, online gaming represents an easy source of cash for governments in most states. Lawmakers have the capability to create a new business overnight and generate a new source of revenue without raising taxes. The people today want the freedom to spend their money how they please and state lawmakers like the notion of additional revenue.
Online Gambling Bill Passes in the Illinois Senate
The next big break for internet gambling in Illinois came about suddenly in May of 2017. With little warning, language legalizing online gambling and internet poker was added to a daily fantasy sports invoice at the behest of local riverboat casino interests.
According to local news reports, existing casinos in Illinois view daily fantasy sports as a competing company model and were initially opposed to laws regulating dream sports. But, those casinos had been considering expanding to online gambling for quite a while. They could strike a bargain with lawmakers and get the internet gaming language added to the dream sports invoice.
Along with creating customer protection regulations for daily fantasy sport, the modified bill seeks to legalize online gambling and issue permits to operators. Existing casinos, horse racing tracks and ADW operators will be authorized to apply for licenses to get an application fee of $250,000 and a licensing fee of $10 million. Operators will be permitted to cancel the hefty licensing fee against future taxes collected on gambling revenue.
The bill had been put to a vote in the Illinois Senate in May and passed by a vote of 42-10, but stalled in the home.
Is it legal to perform offshore casinos or poker sites?
Article 28 of the Illinois Criminal Code seems to prohibit the mere act of playing poker or wagering on games. The code doesn’t specifically mention that the World Wide Web, but it could be interpreted to apply to gambling on games everywhere with the following text:
(a) A Individual commits gambling when he or she:
(1) knowingly plays a game of chance or skill for money or other thing of value, unless excepted in subsection (b) of this Section;
(2) intentionally makes a wager upon the result of any match, competition, or even any political nomination, election or appointment;
However, Illinois hasn’t once prosecuted an individual for playing games on the internet. The country is home to some very high-profile poker players such as the likes of Taylor Caby, who has made millions of dollars playing online poker and running the poker coaching website CardRunners.com. There probably is not much legal risk associated with playing at offshore poker rooms or rooms.
Even so, we don’t advise our subscribers to perform for real cash at unlicensed poker sites. The legal risk may be small, but it’s not zero. There is also a significant financial risk related to playing sites that still accept Americans contrary to US gaming legislation. The Department of Justice has show

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