Sports betting was up 9% year-over-year in Illinois during September, but revenue in the first full month of football dropped off significantly.
Key Takeaways
- Illinois sports betting operators generated the first billion-dollar handle since May.
- Revenue fell as bettors kept sportsbooks’ parlay hold to 13%.
- The per-wager tax generated 37% of the state’s total haul.
The Illinois Gaming Board recently reported that $1.42 billion was wagered for the month, the first handle to reach a billion dollars in the Prairie State since May and the sixth to go over $1.4 billion in the last 12 months.
However, revenue of $100.7 million was down 26.2% from the $137.1 million that online and retail sportsbooks hauled in during September 2024. Nearly $99 million of the latest profits came from mobile wagers, which were down 15.2% from the previous year.
The 7.1% hold was the second lowest of 2025 in Illinois and down considerably from the 10.5% win rate in September 2024. Coming into September, the yearly average hold was 9.7%, but that was lowered by customer-friendly outcomes early in the NFL season.
Adding up
Illinois sports betting operators paid out $28.7 million in taxes to the Prairie State, with $1.1 million going to Chicago-area Cook County.
The Land of Lincoln filled its coffers with $10.6 million from the state’s new per-wager tax, which went into effect in July and was likely the cause for the drop in the amount of online bets placed in September. The latest reported month marked the first that all online operators levied their own surcharges or betting minimums to offset their costs on the tax hike.
In September, DraftKings accepted more than 11.2 million bets, which amounted to $4 million in taxes to the state. FanDuel paid out an even higher $4.5 million on nearly 11 million wagers. No other online sportsbook reached $600,000 in monthly wager payouts. DraftKings and FanDuel combined have filled the Prairie State’s coffers with more than $16 million in per-wager taxes.
Parlay plummet
| Online Operator | September Handle | Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| DraftKings | $507.9 million | $28.7 million |
| FanDuel | $417.9 million | $39.4 million |
| Fanatics Sportsbook | $118.8 million | $7.1 million |
| BetRivers | $77.5 million | $4.5 million |
| BetMGM | $65.5 million | $4.7 million |
| bet365 | $63.8 million | $5.7 million |
Parlays played a significant role in the year-over-year profit plummet. The 13% hold on September’s multi-leg wagers was the best for Illinois bettors since March.
FanDuel produced the most revenue in September, using a 9.4% hold on a $417.9-million handle to nearly reach $40 million in profits, with more than $25 million coming from parlays.
DraftKings had the highest handle with $507.9 million, but the online operator turned just a 5.6% hold to make $28.7 million in revenue, thanks primarily to bettors lowering their parlay hold in half compared to the last four months.
Fanatics Sportsbook was the only other online operator to generate more than $100 million in wagers during September, but it only produced a 6% hold. BetMGM and bet365 were two of the few online sportsbooks that achieved a win rate over 7%.
More taxes?
Now that the Prairie State’s per-wager tax is settling in, Chicago is trying to get in on the action. The city’s mayor proposed a 10.25% local wagering tax in his 2026 budget, but Illinois lawmakers are hoping to stifle another hike attempt.
Illinois has already drawn criticism from the Sports Betting Alliance for its per-wager tax, which, combined with a progressive tax system, makes this jurisdiction one of the highest and most complex rates in the U.S.
The industry trade group recently called the state’s tax structure a “warning sign to Chicago, Illinois, and other state policy makers that over-taxing legal betting will have profound negative ramifications for the sustainability of the legal market and future tax revenues for state coffers.”
