Gov. Pritzker Has Signed HB 3136. Here’s How The Bill Immediately Affects Illinois Sports Betting

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed HB 3136 into law on Friday, a bill that will have major ramifications on Illinois sports betting.

The state Senate and Housepassed the bill during the October veto session. Bill authors addressed a few key issues with the legislation.

Here’s how HB 3136 will affect Illinois sports bettors and gamblers now and in the near future.

It is now legal to wager on Illinois college team.

Which sounds a little fanciful and is, to some extent, exciting, but there & rsquo, sassy. Just in-person bet on college teams in Illinois will be allowed.

To legally place bets on Illinois, Northwestern, Loyola Chicago, etc., you & rsquo will need to visit a retail sportsbook at the casino, racetrack, or off-track betting facility.

Rep. Michael Zalewski, who has long pushed for full legalization, believes this is an incremental policy step, and online betting on IL college teams will be revisited in two years.

There should be more speed for a full repeal of the ban in 2023 if this sacrifice is successful without any issues.

Immediately, online casino subscription will be available again.

HB 3136 gives March 5, 2022, as the last possible date for in-person sports betting registration. We could return to mobile sign-ups sooner, but it will be no later than March 5.

The date will be just in time for March Madness betting. In early April, Pritzker brought back in-person registration.

As a result, there are only six online sportsbooks in Illinois, which typically has the third-largest sports betting handle in the US each month. Most legal states have double-digit sportsbooks, so IL is something of an outlier at the moment.

However, by the end of 2022, Illinois could have more than 10 smart sportsbooks. Launching in an in-person membership environment is a non-start for the majority of brands.

The March 5 end date was necessary because there was reason to believe no one was going to bid on an online-only license. The Sports WageringAct states that the issuance of an online-only license is the trigger for a return to remote registration.

That was not a problem when the bill was first written, so during the reject session, lawmakers decided to add in this amendment.

Push tax & rsquo, video gaming, and now legal

A video gaming amendment will have an impact on the state & rsquo’s gaming industry even though it doesn’t fall under the sports betting category.

HB 3136 legalized a video gaming “push tax,” which means a tax is charged each time someone plays a game at a video gaming terminal (VGT).

The press tax in this instance is one cent per push. A force duty was recently approved by a number of municipalities in accordance with the costs.

There is a lot of controversy behind the push tax, as the financial burden falls on the player. However, the tax gives local governments a key revenue stream.