The Illinois sports betting market is expected to lift restrictions for in-person requirements and FanDuel is gearing up by offering punters an array of incentives to get them to sign up. FanDuel bonus offer will give new account holders access to the easiest $100 they will ever make- just for signing up. New account holders can easily use the links supplied by the brand to register for accounts anytime between now and March 5th.
When customers use the link provided they will be given immediate access to the $100 in-site credit on March 5th, which is when the state will lift the restriction officially. The bonus for new account holders is above and beyond what new customers would be treated to in other platforms. In addition, new FanDuel customers will also get access to a risk-free wager of $1,000.
The lifting of in-person registration could not have come at a better time for residents of Illinois. Online registrations were allowed for a short while during the height of the pandemic, at a time when people were confined to their homes and could not visit physical casinos to register new accounts. For FanDuel customers, that meant being forced to drive to its physical book in Collinsville Illinois, which is more closely situated to Indianapolis and St. Louis than it is to Chicago.
To redeem the bonus, all interested customers need to do is pre-register for a new account on FanDuel. Once online registration is made official on March 5th, customers will get a chance to redeem their bonus. Please note that the offer is only valid for new account holders.
The Illinois governor Jay Pritzker signed House Bill 3136 into law on December 17th thus amending the state’s sports wagering law. As a result of this amendment, residents of Illinois will have permission to register remotely at any online sports betting platform of their choice. Under the original law which was enacted almost 2 years ago, sports punters wishing to take part in online sports wagering were required to register physically and in person at a retail sportsbook location of their choosing.
Now that this law is being lifted soon, sports betting customers will be able to register for new accounts remotely online or via a mobile sports betting app of their liking. House Bill 3136 also partially reversed the ban on in-state collegiate sports wagering, which means that Illinois punters can now place bets on collegiate sporting events involving state schools under various conditions.
As per this new law, residents will be allowed to place bets on college teams but no wagers will be allowed on an individual athlete’s performance or skill. All college-related bets must also be placed before the actual event in question kicks off to guarantee the integrity of the games, as well as the safety of the players and the teams. The reverse of the ban on in-state collegiate sports wagering was made effective instantly.
FanDuel launched its sports betting product in Illinois after forging a partnership with Boyd Gaming. As a result of this collaboration, FanDuel opened a physical book at the Par-A-Dice Casino located in East Peoria. Before this opportunity, FanDuel had been looking to enter the Illinois sports betting market for years. At its debut, the state placed FanDuel in the penalty box, which prevented them from offering online registrations to residents.
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FanDuel Winning Big All over the Country
FanDuel has a presence in almost all legal sports betting markets, which explains why the brand is so popular among sports betting fans. In Illinois, where FanDuel is well established, punters wagered almost $61 million on the Super Bowl. Experts had predicted that punters would wager more than $1 billion on the Super Bowl and punters did not disappoint.
Despite only operating for a week into the month, the Empire State has managed to smash the sports wagering record for a monthly handle. In just the first 23 days of legal mobile sports betting, sportsbooks in New York accepted $1.625 billion in sports bets. This easily surpassed the $1.3 billion record that had been previously set by New Jersey in October 2021.
As a result of this impressive handle, New York tax collector collected $57.6 million from sports betting. In this first month, 3 sportsbooks dominated the overall handle accounting for 91% of all the wagers placed. The top 3 sportsbooks during this time included DraftKings, Caesars, and of course FanDuel.
Of the 3 sportsbooks, Caesars generated the most revenue with $615.5 million in the handle. FanDuel came in at second place with $501.7 million while DraftKings came in third managing an impressive $367.6 million. Trailing behind the top 3 was BetMGM, which managed to generate a cool $78.1 million.
Other operators including BetRivers produced $32.4 million while PointsBets generated $29.4 million. However, BetRivers and PointsBet position at the bottom of the revenue table is to be expected since they were the most recent brands to enter the market. Come the end of February, these existing operators will also have new competitors to deal with namely WynnBet.
Eventually, other operators will also gain market access including Bally Bet and Resorts World Bet. It is not clear when Resorts World will make its debut although Bally’s is anticipated to launch sometime in April this year.
FanDuel Still Has a Lot to Prove
FanDuel still has a lot to prove to its customers after its recent outage in January. FanDuel experienced outages on the last day of the regular-season NFL games, which prevented several of its customers from accessing the platform. During the outages, users reported challenges logging into their accounts on the site, as well as the app. Other customers complained of being unable to withdraw the bets they had placed.
The outage would last for about 6 hours although it is still unclear what caused it. This was not the first time that FanDuel experienced downtime. In October last year, the brand also suffered a major disruption that resulted in delays to its in-game live scoring, thus inconveniencing customers with incorrect stats.
