All About Sports Betting Handle And Revenue in Illinois

By Christopher Boan

@cgboan

March 11, 2026 01:46pm

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, January vs. December

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The opening month of 2026 delivered a month-over-month drop-off for Illinois sports betting operators and regulators. 

January’s total sports betting handle in Illinois was $1,433,388,449, down 0.5% from December ($1,441,094,025), according to numbers that the Illinois Gaming Board posted on March 11. The state’s mobile sports betting handle from all operators combined was $1,403,565,390, a 0.4% decrease from $1,409,335,595 in December.

The total amount wagered was also down slightly in a year-over-year comparison with January 2025, when the tally was nearly $1.474 billion.

In total, the adjusted gross revenue (AGR) statewide in January was $138,464,345, which was 13.8% lower than $160,541,796 in the final month of 2025. Revenue derived from online wagering fell 12.6%, from $156,822,957 in December to $136,999,365 in January.

That drop in AGR meant that the total sports betting tax in the Land of Lincoln fell too. The state collected $63,092,499 in January, down 10.9% from the previous month ($70,798,870). Of that, $62,642,465 in taxes came from mobile sportsbooks.

Illinois Mobile Sports Betting History