Casinos in Illinois earned an amount of $7.2m in revenue in August – up 99.6% from July, with players staking $140.1m – up 166.7%, with Rush Street Entertainment continuing to lead the way,
The vast majority of handle, at $124.0m, was made up of online wagers – up 155% from July with bookmakers making $6.0m online from this handle – up 80.6%. The remaining $1.2m was made through retail sportsbooks – over 5 times the revenue posted for the channel in July.
Rush Street Entertainment and its Kambi-powered sportsbook was the first to launch in the state of Illinois and carried on dominating the market that accounts for $6.3m of total revenue – up 88.5% month over month. This came on amounts wagered totaling $117.9m – up 127.8%.
Following Rush Street Entertainment was DraftKings’ sportsbook at Casino Queen in East St Louis, bringing in $657,000 in its first month of activity on handle of $14.1m while Penn National’s Argosy Casino Alton saw revenue increase five-fold to $222,000 on wagers worth $2.7m.
A further amount of $24,000 was taken in by Penn National through its sportsbook at Hollywood Casino Joliet and $27,000 at Hollywood Casino Aurora.
William Hill, which accepted a takeover offer from Caesars Entertainment this month, took in an amount of $42,000 from Elgin Riverboat Resort.
An amount of $1.2m in tax from these wagers was brought in by the state – up 100.8%, making $982,000 from online bets and $195,000m from those placed in person.
Only Rush Street and DraftKings offered an online option during August. Rush Street brought in revenue of $9,1m online and DraftKings $747,000.
An amount of $69.2m was staked on bets on final match results, classed as ‘Tier 1 bets’ in Illinois – up 130.5%. Bets on outcomes such as prop bets or over/unders, classed as ‘Tier 2 bets” saw stakes of $70.9m – up 215.1%.
A huge amount of bets were placed on professional sports, which saw $139.6m staked with a further $114.000 staked on college sports and $302,000 on motor racing.