This rule was meant to slow DraftKings and FanDuel for 18 months, in hopes to provide Rush Street Gaming (which owns several physical casinos in the state, plus online sportsbook BetRivers) an edge ahead of the superior online sportsbooks. The in-person sign-up requirement was put on hiatus several times during the COVID-19 pandemic to limit physical contact, and would fully expire in March 2022.
That location is a little over four hours from Chicago, just outside St. Then in 2021, its license switched to Fairmount Park, which FanDuel purchased. Par-A-Dice Casino, FanDuel’s original land-based partner, was two and a half hours from Chicago in East Peoria. Initially, the Land of Lincoln required new users to go to an in-person casino or racetrack to register for a sports betting account, which understandably diminished both the handle and total wagers placed.Īt the time, most of the in-person locations were hours from Chicago. Online sports betting would follow in June 2020.īut the Illinois sports betting industry is largely broken down by two distinct timelines: before the in-person registration requirement and after. The Illinois sports betting bill was passed in June 2019 and in-person betting launched in March of 2020 right before the COVID-19 pandemic.
