Illinois Sportsbooks Hit New Milestone
The Illinois Gaming Board has finally compiled the sports betting numbers for the month of July, and the state continues to impress. Illinois is clearly one of the biggest sports betting markets in the entire country, but it just can’t seem to move up a spot.
The biggest news from the July report is that the total sports betting revenue went over the $1 billion mark with another strong month. Illinois becomes just the fourth state to go over that mark after recording $46.1 million in revenue during the month of July.
Sports betting in Illinois launched all the way back in March 2020, but online sportsbooks didn’t launch until a few months later. It was a slow process to get sportsbooks launched in Illinois, but it wasn’t long before the state was putting up some serious numbers.
New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania are the other three states to post a total gross sports betting revenue of over $1 billion. New York is not far from reaching that mark as well, and it will get there before the end of 2022.
The state of Illinois was able to bring in just under $7 million in tax revenue for the month of July, but sportsbooks didn’t perform as well compared to other states. A majority of the states posted a win rate of more than 10%, but Illinois sportsbooks were right at 8.9% for the hold.
No Catching New Jersey
Ever since New York took over the top spot in terms of monthly sports betting handle, New Jersey has held on to second place. Illinois was trending to jump into that position, and many thought it would happen over the summer.
For the third month in a row, Illinois fell just short of New Jersey for that spot, and the gap was actually wider in July than it had been in May and June. The total sports betting handle for the month of July in Illinois was $516.4 million, which was a decrease of 17.8% from the June total.
This total was a bit disappointing, but the handle still grew by over 40% from the July 2021 figure. Illinois has moved into 4th place in all-time sports betting handle since the federal ban was lifted, and is closing in on the state of Pennsylvania.
Battle For Third Place
When it comes to the top operators in the state of Illinois, it’s pretty clear that DraftKings and FanDuel run the show. The battle for third place has started to tighten up, but the gap between the top two is also getting wider.
FanDuel led the way with a total sports betting handle of over $168 million, and DraftKings was in second place at $152 million. BetMGM has started to close the gap on BetRivers for third place, but those two competitors were nearly even in July.
