According to the Illinois Gaming Board, the state raked in $400.4 million in sports betting handle in August. That number represents an 8.5% increase over July’s $369.1 million.
Out of the 19 states and District of Columbia that have legal sports betting, Illinois came in just behind Nevada, which raked in $428.2 million in sports betting handle. Even better, Illinois raked in a little more than $4 billion thus far in 2021 for the number three spot. New Jersey is number one in sports betting, with $6.1 billion and Nevada took second place with $4.2 billion.
However, the increase in handle did not positively affect Illinois Adjusted gaming revenue; at $26.8 million, August proved to be the lowest monthly total of 2021. Sportsbooks also suffered a win rate of only 6.71%, much lower than July’s all-time high of 10.19%. Despite that, Illinois sportsbooks made close to $319.5 million in adjusted revenue during 2021, just behind New Jersey.
Despite August’s poor performance, the state of Illinois collected more than $4 million in tax revenue for a total of more than $47.9 million.
Cook County, which has a 2% tax on adjusted gaming revenue for all sports wagers placed in the county, collected $294,458 in taxes for August and more than $3.7 million thus far for 2021.
Nationally, the first eight months of 2021 saw a handle of around $25 billion, outpacing 2020’s total of $21.5 billion.
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Illinois Loves Parlay Bets
Illinois sports bettors love parlay wagering; so far this year, Illinoisans have placed around $860 million in parlay wagers and almost $1.2 billion since sports betting launched in March 2020.
While parlay betting is popular in Illinois, it’s not a winning strategy for bettors; in July, the sportsbooks raked in nearly $200 million in winnings, compared to a pitiful 16.76% win rate for bettors. However, parlay bettors did a little bit better during August, boosting the win rate to 17.23% while the sportsbooks made $12.1 million.
DraftKings, which accepted around $76 million in parlay bets, paid out the most to bettors. The sportsbook giant only won 5.51%, making less than $4.2 million. Other Illinois mobile sportsbooks that offer parlay betting, including FanDuel, BetRivers, PointsBet, and Barstool, all had win rates ranging between 12.32% to 20.88%.
August parlay revenue dropped more than 28% in July and more than 47% compared to June.
Baseball parlay bets raked in the most, with more than $138.6 million in handle. Of that, operators kept $8.9 million for an all-time monthly high. Coming in second place for parlay bets is tennis with $43.2 million, and coming in third is soccer with $30.9 million. Tennis and soccer earned operators $5 million. All other sports raked in $15.7 million in parlay bet handle, earning operators $1.2 million.
DraftKings is King of Handle, but FanDuel Earns More
DraftKings took in more handle than any other operator during August, with $146.6 million in wagers. Also, DraftKings became the first Illinois operator to take in more than $2 billion in handle.
FanDuel came in second for August, with just under $110.9 million in handle. BetRivers placed third with $64.8 million, and taking fourth place was PointsBet with $27.3 million. Barstool Sportsbook took fifth place with $25.5 million and coming in a distant sixth place was Caesars, with just $5.2 million in handle.
Despite taking in the most handle, DraftKings’ revenue fell by 19.7% to less than $7.3 million. BetRivers revenue fell even more, by 26.9% with less than $4.7 million in profit. Compared to July, Caesars’ handle surged by 39.4%, but revenue dropped by 12.4% to just $198,983.
When it came to revenue, Barstool edged out PointsBet with around $2.1 million, while PointsBet revenue totaled a little less than $2 million. With a win rate of 8.5%, FanDuel took the top revenue spot with over $9.3 million; however, that total was 40.3% lower than July, which earned FanDuel more than $15.6 million.
Retail Sportsbooks See Higher, Handle, but Revenue Lower
The nine retail sportsbooks in Illinois posted a combined win rate of 6.69% on around $20 million in bets; that’s a 7.7% increase compared to July. Accounting for more than 40% of the handle, Rivers Casino took in $8.5 million, and with a total of $675,538 in revenue.
Casino Queen took in $202,160, Hawthorne Race Course saw $153,391 in handle, and Argosy Casino had just $112,194 in handle.
FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing, formerly Fairmount Park in Collinsville, saw a total revenue of just $6,307 on more than $570,000 in handle. However, Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria had a pitiful $975 profit on $260,504 in sports bets.
