The Illinois Gaming Board reported 28.8 million accepted sports betting wagers for January on Tuesday, continuing the notable year-over-year decline in the volume of bets during the busier portion of the sports schedule. The decline started when the state began a per-wager surcharge in July.
| Mobile Operator | January 2026 Wagers | January 2025 Wagers | Volume Difference | Percentage Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FanDuel | 11,125,318 | 15,971,162 | (4,845,844) | (30.3%) |
| DraftKings | 10,139,094 | 13,242,075 | (3,102,981) | (23.4%) |
| bet365 | 1,864,013 | 0 | 1,864,013 | N/A |
| Fanatics Sportsbook | 1,493,427 | 1,416,095 | 77,332 | 5.5% |
| BetMGM | 1,210,304 | 1,577,483 | (367,179) | (23.3%) |
| TheScore Bet | 912,363 | 1,056,258 (as ESPN Bet) | (143,895) | (13.6%) |
| Hard Rock Bet | 757,759 | 794,818 | (37,059) | (4.7%) |
| BetRivers | 706,070 | 1,199,075 | (493,005) | (41.1%) |
| Caesars Sportsbook | 633,113 | 775,730 | (142,617) | (18.4%) |
| Circa Sports | 39,846 | 38,448 | 1,398 | 3.6% |
| TOTALS | 28,881,307 | 36,071,144 | (7,189,837) | (19.9%) |
| TOTALS without bet365 | 27,017,294 | 36,071,144 | (9,053,850) | (25.1%) |
The decline deepens to more than 25% when excluding bet365, which took its first bets in Illinois last March. That follows double-digit percentage declines in wagering volume from September through December. The surcharge, which is $0.25 per wager for every operator for their first 20 million wagers in a fiscal year and $0.50 thereafter, generated $12.5 million in receipts for the state in January.
The $74.7 million raised overall is nearly double the $40 million estimated in the budget signed by Gov. JB Pritzker last May. FanDuel and DraftKings again accounted for the bulk of the remittance having long passed the 20 million wager threshold; their combined $10.6 million in payments represents 84.8% of the January’s amount.
Handle, however, declined only 2.8% from January 2025 to $1.43 billion as Illinois joined New York and New Jersey as the only states to surpass $60 billion handle in the post-PASPA era. Illinois sportsbooks grossed $130 million in crafting a statewide hold of nearly 9.1%, but adjustments to multiple operators resulted in taxable adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of nearly $137 million.
AGR was down 11.7% from last year, but the state still collected $48.8 million in tax receipts. State coffers have swelled by $127.5 million in fiscal year-over-year comparisons to $353 million from standard tax receipts plus the per-wager tax. Receipts solely from operator AGR are up $52.8 million thanks to a 19.1% increase in AGR through the first seven months of the fiscal year.
A closer look: DraftKings and FanDuel parlays
There are many things that are true simultaneously about parlay wagering in Illinois: Many bettors like participating; FanDuel’s first mover status with regard to same game parlays (SGPs) heavily contributes to it usually being the top revenue operator in the state; and both digital powerhouses have parlays that represent a majority of their monthly wagers.
But the way each has gone about passing the surcharge to its bettors (or not in portions of DraftKings’ multi-layered approach) has resulted in an ongoing sea change of sorts in Illinois in the metrics of the eternal rivals.
Both saw sizable declines in the volume of parlay wagering compared to January 2025: DraftKings was down 29.3% to 5.6 million bets and FanDuel was 27.3% lower to 7.9 million. At the same time, DraftKings’ average parlay wager shot up 56% to $28.35, while FanDuel’s increase was a more pedestrian 9.2% to $18.79.
That per wager increase gave DraftKings a 10.3% year-over-year bump in parlay handle to $159.7 million despite parlay wagers accounting for 55.5% of all wagering versus 60.2% in 2025. FanDuel’s numbers skewed opposite: Handle tumbled 20.6% to $148.3 million and parlays represented 71% of all wagers compared to 68% to open 2025.
Parlay handle was 31.6% of total handle for DraftKings, up three percentage points from last year. The near 36% for FanDuel slid 3.1 percentage points. Lastly, operator performance put a final spin on the final revenue numbers that leaned in DraftKings’ favor.
Its 19.5% hold was four-tenths of a percentage point lower than last year, and the $31.1 million in parlay revenue was up 8.3%. FanDuel’s state-leading 20.7% win rate was down 3.7 percentage points, with its total winnings of $30.8 million off by more than one-third from January 2025.
Checking the tax tiers
In addition to plotting strategy in dealing with the per-wager surcharge, Illinois’ progressive tax rates on operator AGR means constantly changing rates for operators. FanDuel and DraftKings reached the 40% ceiling earlier in the fiscal year, and the per wager surcharge when added to their operator remittance has the pair paying effective state tax rates of 44.6% and 43.3%, respectively, on revenue.
Despite the second-place finish in parlay revenue, FanDuel led the state’s 10 mobile sportsbooks with $50.3 million AGR. DraftKings was a relatively close second with $47 million, and Fanatics was the only other operator in eight figures at $11.7 million.
What is uncertain at the moment is if Fanatics’ move to the Argosy Casino Alton reset its tax rate to 20%. The generated tax summary on the Illinois Gaming Board website showed Fanatics remitting $363,495 to the state based on its $1.8 million AGR. Fanatics took $70.3 million in bets in the six-plus months of the current fiscal year at its previous tether, Hawthorne Race Course, and moved into the 30% bracket after crossing $50 million.
BetRivers, BetMGM, and bet365 are all currently in the 25% bracket, having crossed the $30 million threshold. The trio are separated by less than $1.5 million, with BetRivers leading the pack at $39.5 million followed by bet365 ($38.9 million) and BetMGM ($38.1 million)
Despite utilizing a high-limit, low-hold business model, Circa Sports continues to face an outsized effect of the per-wager surcharge. Bettors came out $65,200 ahead of the $11.6 million in completed events handle for January, which results in $0 AGR for the month. Circa has paid the base 20% tax rate on its $563,900 AGR, but the additional $65,430 in wager surcharge remittances has increased its effective tax rate to 31.6%.
