Illinois Sports Betting

Illinois has become one of the several states that have legalized sports betting recently. In the spring of 2019, a law was passed that allowed retail and online sports betting. Of course, they haven't started working yet, but it is expected that this year sports bettors in Illinois will be lucky. It all depends on how quickly state regulators, sportsbooks, and casinos get adapted to the new situation.

The law regulators haven’t announced a specific date when the first sports bet will be possible. However, the expectations are that Illinois can quickly become one of the biggest sports betting markets in the USA.

Setting the Basics of Legalized Sports Betting in Illinois

The statutes of Illinois say which forms of betting are allowed. Some of them are bingo, slots, pari-mutuel horse-riding, lottery, and riverboat casinos. Slot parlors were legalized with the introduction of the Video Gaming Act from 2009. Another law legalized riverboat gambling in 1990.

Today, the state has around ten riverboat casinos, approximately 6,000 slot parlors, and nearly 30 pari-mutuel gambling tools. It is believed that the riverboat casinos will be the first ones to get sports betting license and thus start sports betting. However, some horse-racing tracks will also try to become candidates for sports betting.

It was in 2018 when the law regulators in Illinois started considering sports betting bills. They introduced five of these bills very soon afterward.

Which Are the Two Prospects for Sports Betting in Illinois?

The first prospect for sports gambling in Illinois is that it will go through a lot of challenges, and it will hardly ever succeed. One of the stumbling blocks is considered to be the high costs that operators will be asked to pay in order to provide sports betting services.

On the other hand, there are also some more optimistic projections of sports betting in Illinois. According to it, the betting operators will pay the necessary amount of money to get their licenses and make their bettors happier.

Daily Fantasy Sports in Illinois

Are DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports) Legal in Illinois?

Though the law says it is still illegal to gamble in the state of Illinois, if you are a DFS player, you can participate in a DFS contest there. The law regulators don’t say specifically that DFS sites shouldn’t accept players anymore, so there are still some DFS operators that take customers. Some of them are FanDuel, Yahoo, DraftKings, and Fantasy Draft.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan claims that DFS encourages illegal betting. However, this does not mean that everyone else believes that DFS is unlawful. FanDuel and DraftKings are trying to prove in court that DFS is legal. Their efforts haven't met with success yet. In the meantime, the DFS operators are forced to function in the legal grey sphere.

What is the Story Behind Daily Fantasy Sports in Illinois?

Since sports betting wasn't considered legal until 2019, Illinois had to find another way to satisfy the needs of their bettors. So they were among the first ones to start the business of Daily Fantasy Sports betting. Since 2015 they have been trying to regulate and legalize DFS and have gone through a number of challenges.