Illinois’ sports betting handle and revenue continued to grow in January marking a strong start to the year for Illinois’ sports betting market.
According to the latest figures from the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) sportsbooks in the state took a record $581.6m in bets in January.
The majority of the state’s handle came from online sportsbooks after bettors wagered $575.1m with online operators.
Sportsbooks in the state of Illinois also generated $49.4m in revenue which led to the state receiving $7.2m in tax revenue.
The state’s latest figures mark a significant increase on the $491.7m wagered and $23.9m generated in December.
DraftKings continues to dominate the market
DraftKings, which is partnered with Casino Queen, continued to dominate the market after processing $244.2m in sports bets and holding onto $16.4m in revenue. The majority of the licensees’ handle came from DraftKings online sportsbook which took $243.5m in bets.
FanDuel, which serves the state via a partnership with Par-A-Dice, took second place after processing $173.5m in bets and holding onto $16.9m in revenue. The online sportsbook accounted for $173.3m of the total handle.
BetRivers and the Rivers casino processed $112.7m in wagers and held onto $10.8m. The online sports betting product accounted for $109m of the total handle.
Hawthorne Race Course and its online partner PointsBet took a distant fourth place after taking $40.6m in bets and generating $4.4m in revenue. Almost all of the handle came from PointsBet’s online sportsbooks.
Grand Victoria and William Hill took $9.3m in bets and generated $616,486 in revenue. Bettors wagered $8.9m via the William Hill online sportsbook.
What did people bet on?
According to the report, bettors in the state of Illinois wagered $230m on basketball events.
Football was the second most popular sport to bet on with Illinois bettors wagering $159m on events.
Parlay bets were also incredibly popular with $109.2m being bet on parlay wagers. Bettors also wagered $30m on soccer events and $17.9m on hockey events.
Illinois and the other states
With January’s figures, Illinois is now the fourth state to surpass $500m in bets in a single month.
For the month of January, Illinois took fourth place in terms of sports betting handle. In January, New Jersey took $958.7m in bets while Nevada took $646.5m in bets and Pennsylvania processed $615.3m in bets.
