Projection: Illinois Will Set All-Time State Handle Record In March 2022, But Fall Shy Of $1 Billion In Sports Bets

Written By Joe Boozell on February 22, 2022
March Madness bracket

In March 2021, Illinois mobile sportsbooks set a then-handle record with $633.6 million in bets. At the time, it seemed gaudy.

And it was, but we should see meaningful growth in March 2022. In-person registration goes away on March 5, and at least one new operator (BetMGM Sportsbook) will launch.

For the first time since April, others will have the opportunity to find new clients electronically.

In the young, legitimate US sports betting market, this is an unprecedented situation. Yes, there have been times of in-person membership in other states. However, the flip-flipping makes Illinois distinctive and mdash, as you may recall, there were roughly seven months of online registration in 2020 – 21 as a result of COVID-19.

As a result, it is very difficult to predict the future. Will there be a massive increase in sports gambling in March with the in-person restraints lifted? Or is the buzz overstated given that bookmakers haven’t had a chance to sign customers up online since April? Or something in the middle?

Here is our educated guess about what type of results Illinois sports betting apps will produce next month.

Not quite$ 1 billion, but still impressive

The March handle is being set over / under at$ 900 million. Although it would certainly fall short of the$ 1 billion mark, that would be a status report.

We can use year-over-year Super Bowl betting numbers to inform our March Madness betting prediction.

Illinois residents bet$ 45.6 million on the great game in 2021. In 2022, that number increased to$ 60.5 million, or about 25 %.

We would arrive at about$ 791 million if we added 25 % to the$ 633.6 million figure for March 2021. However, we also need to take into account that starting on March 5, people will be able to register for IL casinos online. Wine should be able to handle also over$ 791 million, though the exact amount is unknown.

Yet, there are some concepts that guide our viewpoint. Barstool debuted in Illinois on March 11 of last year. For the month, it took approximately$ 49 million in wagers.

Up to Barstool right away, but it appears that BetMGM will probably surpass that amount at launch, if not exceed it.

Barstool’s handle should also increase from what we’ve been seeing in the typical month ($56 million in December, the latest revenue report). It only had three weeks to register users online, significantly less time than every other live operator. Expect Barstool to surge in March.

The same is true of Caesars by William Hill, albeit perhaps to a lesser amount. When it first debuted in Illinois in September 2020, it was going through a product transition, but in the post-IPR world, the company should be much more prominent.

Add in folks who simply never got around to downloading DraftKings, FanDuel, BetRivers and PointsBet — as well as newcomers to the state — and we land at our $900 million projection.

How would this affect tax revenue and technician income?

Casinos earned$ 49.8 million in March of last year. income. State and local tax dollars totaled approximately$ 7 million as a result.

The operator’s hold rate was 7.9 %. If sportsbooks continue to win at a similar rate in 2022, the operator revenue will be$ 70.7 million, and the state and local taxes would be$ 9.9 million.

And even though the handle number had set a record, those numbers wouldn’t really happen until November 2021, when sportsbooks made$ 11.9 million in revenue.

The book occasionally has better times than another, and vice versa. With regard to this year’s NCAA Tournament, we are unable to work that strong.

What we do know, however, is that the Illinois sporting gambling industry is about to expand once more. It & rsquo has actually been registered in person.

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Boozell, Joe

Boozell, Joe has also been a college sports writer for NCAA.com since 2015. His work has also appeared in Bleacher Report, FoxSports.com and NBA.com. Growing up, Boozell squared off against both Anthony Davis and Frank Kaminsky in the Chicagoland basketball scene … you can imagine how that went.

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