Sports betting continued its impressive growth in the Prairie State during the first month of 2022.
Illinois’ sportsbooks witnessed record handle during January as the NFL and NBA fueled this upward trend.
Handle came in at $867.5m for January, beating the state’s previous record, which was set in October, by over $20m. January’s handle also saw a month-on-month growth of 9.9% when compared to December’s numbers.
Of this handle, sportsbooks won $59.3m in gross revenue, a 61% increase from the previous month and a 20% year-on-year improvement.
These high numbers reflect a national trend, as an extended calendar of NFL playoffs and the NBA’s popularity brought sports bettors out in droves.
In total, football raised $224.1m in wagers during the first month of the year. Basketball, however, was the dominant sport in January, bringing in $276.2m, a month-on-on increase of approximately $50m.
As is becoming the norm across the country, online sports betting accounted for the vast majority of wagers making up 95.6% of all bets.
DraftKings produced the most handle, with $293.2m, $283.7 of which came from online bets. This handle generated a gross revenue of $17.2m.
FanDuel came in second with $261.2m but earned the state’s highest gross revenue with $23m.
Illinois is entering a new epoch in terms of sports betting in the coming month. With the removal of in-person betting restrictions and the launch of the NCAA Tournament, analysts at Playillinois predict that handle will soon surpass $1bn.