Sports Betting Handle in Illinois Hits $507.3M in May

In May, the sports betting handle in Illinois reached $507.3 million, according to data released by the Illinois Gaming Board. Although the result marks a small decrease compared to April, May is the fifth consecutive month with a sports betting handle above $500 million.

Illinois Records $507.3M in Sports Betting Handle for May

In-person sports wagering in Illinois launched on March 9 last year. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the activity was suspended after a week. That lasted for a few months until June 18, 2020, when online wagering on sports in the state started. Furthermore, Illinois resumed in-person wagering in July last year.

Despite the COVID-related restrictions and decreased revenues due to the pandemic, sports wagering handle in Illinois has been growing this year. In fact, the sports betting handle in May has reached $507.3 million, according to Illinois Gaming Board data.

Strong Results since the Start of 2021

Back in March, Illinois’ sports betting handle skyrocketed to $633.6 million. In April, it decreased slightly to $537.2 million. This means that the $507.3 million in May represent a 5.6% decrease in sports betting handle when compared to April. The results from May mark the second consecutive month in sports betting handle decline. However, looking at the bigger picture, we see that May is the fifth consecutive month with a sports betting handle of more than $500 million.

Focusing on sports betting revenue, it hit $36.2 million in May. This marks a 16.9% decrease when compared to April when sports betting revenue in Illinois hit $43.6 million. Considering that the revenue decreased slightly in May, so did the tax proceedings. In May, Illinois received $5.4 million in tax proceedings from sports wagering. So far, the state has received more than $31 million in taxes from the activity from the start of the year.

Retail Sports Betting Handle in May Increases

The breakdown of the total sports betting handle of $507.3 million shows that retail revenue handle was $24.7 million, while the mobile handle hit $482.6 million in May. Comparing the retail sports betting handle, there was an increase by 3.3% from the $23.9 million raised in April. On the other hand, the mobile sports betting handle in May marks a decrease of 6% when compared to April.

According to a further breakdown of the sports betting handle released by Play Illinois, DraftKings hit the highest online handle in May with $166,227,839. Second in line was FanDuel, with $155,574,427 in online sports betting handle, while BetRivers came in third with $76,722,864.

On the other hand, retail sports betting handle looks differently. In May, Rivers casino recorded $12.2 million in sports betting retail handle, while Casino Queen was responsible for $3.8 million. Third, in line was Argosy casino with $2.6 million in sports betting retail handle.