All About Sports Betting Handle And Revenue in Illinois

By Christopher Boan

@cgboan

October 16, 2025 12:31pm

The experts at IllinoisBet.com have assembled this guide to explain what we mean when we talk about financial figures from Illinois sportsbooks, which include handle, revenue and tax collections.

The sports betting market in Illinois includes retail sportsbooks at the state’s casinos, plus mobile sports betting apps.

In the financial language of sports betting, handle is simply the total of all sports wagers made in the state during one calendar month. The handle can be specified as either retail (in person) or online (using a device such as a laptop, desktop or mobile phone). In Illinois, bettors wager hundreds of millions of dollars each month – sometimes more than a billion dollars – and the vast majority of the action is on Illinois betting apps.

Revenue is what is left for the gambling operators after winnings are paid out. The tax collections from sports gambling is determined by a 15% tax rate (plus additional taxes for wagers placed in Cook County and the City of Chicago) that is applied to the operators’ Revenue.

Sport gambling in the Land of Lincoln was legalized in 2019 with the Sports Wagering Act. The first legal sports bet was placed in March 2020.

Illinois Sports Betting, August vs. July

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The return of college and NFL football corresponded directly with a surge in Illinois sports betting interest during August. That’s according to numbers that the Illinois Gaming Board reported on Oct. 16, which showed a total sports betting handle $1,029,422,295 in August, up 19.4% from July ($862,492,391).

In total, Illinois operators took in a mobile sports betting handle (or amount wagered) of $1,004,580,266 for the eighth month of 2025, a 19.0% increase in a month-over-month comparison with July’s $843,925,853 in bets.

More than $87.585 million was wagered on football statewide for August, a month which had only one full week of college action and some NFL preseason games. Baseball was the leading individual sport, with $248.2 million in handle.

Illinois sportsbooks recorded $107,796,774 in revenue, 20.2% higher than $89,691,309 in July. The state’s mobile sports betting revenue hit $105,874,605, up 20.7% from July ($87,716,199).

That surge in Illinois sports betting handle and revenue meant that the Prairie State received $33,450,552 in taxes derived from sports betting for August, up 38.2% from July ($24,205,153). Mobile operators statewide accounted for a 38.7% spike in taxes, from $23,757,536 the previous month to $32,951,981 for August.

Illinois Mobile Sports Betting History