FanDuel announced Thursday it is waiving its 50-cent surcharge on bets placed in Illinois through June 19, which may be a sign that state Rep. Daniel Didech’s bill to repeal the much-derided wager tax is gaining traction in Springfield.
An email sent to Illinois bettors did not explain why FanDuel is waiving the surcharge, simply that the digital titan is opting to do away with its pass-through. None of the other nine mobile sportsbooks in Illinois have yet offered bettors anything similar.
Other operators have chosen a variety of methods to counterbalance the surcharge, including setting minimum wager amounts. FanDuel did not respond to an email inquiry asking why it has chosen to waive the surcharge.
As one of the top two mobile sportsbooks in Illinois, FanDuel has been paying the higher 50-cent-per-wager surcharge since September when it crossed the 20 million wager threshold in the fiscal year, triggering the increase from 25 cents per bet placed.
FanDuel has remitted more than $32.8 million to the state via the wager surcharge from July through January, which has raised its effective state tax rate to 44.2%. It has totaled $144.3 million in state tax payments, $3.5 million in remits to Cook County for a 2% levy on revenue generated there, and an undetermined amount to the City of Chicago for its recently enacted 10.25% tax on city-originated revenue.
Will it spark a boost in handle?
FanDuel’s bread and butter when it comes to traditional sportsbook revenue is through parlays, including same game parlays (SGPs). More than 65% of its year-to-date adjusted gross revenue in fiscal year 2026 — $213.4 million — has come from the multi-leg bets.
That is a 0.3% increase compared to FY 2025, but that gain of $725,500 is due to improved operator performance. FanDuel has a 20.6% hold on parlays through the first seven months of this fiscal year, an increase of nearly two percentage points.
The volume of parlay wagering has declined 19.4% to 53.3 million as the pass-through impacted high-leg-count, low-wager-amount parlays commonly placed during NFL season. Parlay handle this fiscal year is down 9.1% to $1.04 billion, a reduction of $103.6 million.
FanDuel’s universal pass-through surcharge gave DraftKings an opening to grab market share on parlays (FanDuel had been the first mover on SGPs). DraftKings took a nuanced approach to its pass-throughs and opted not to place one on parlay wagers of $10 or more.
That contributed to a 20.5% increase in fiscal YTD parlay handle of $1.05 billion. And that increase comes despite a sharper 28% decline in the volume of parlay wagers from 55.1 million to 39.6 million. The result: DraftKings parlay revenue has surged 33% fiscal year-over-year to $178.9 million. Its 17.1% win rate on such bets is up 1.6 percentage points compared to FY 2025.
FanDuel’s average parlay wager the first seven months of the fiscal year increased by 12.8% from $17.27 to $19.48. The average DraftKings multi-leg bet vaulted 67.4% from $15.80 to $26.45.
Didech’s bill to repeal the wager surcharge, HB 5143, was re-referred to the House Rules Committee on March 27. The Illinois General Assembly has an April 17 deadline for legislation to cross over to the Senate for potential passage this year.
