A bill to legalize iGaming and add online casinos games to the sports betting landscape has been presented to the state house again. The Internet Gaming Act would allow the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) to license iGaming operators.
Last Updated: February 04, 2026 at 9:18 PM UTC +1
Published: February 04, 2026 at 9:18 PM UTC +1
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Exactly a year ago, at the beginning of February 2025, two bills were filed by Senator Cristina Castro and Representative Edgar Gonzales (SB1963 and HB3080). Those were now merged into HB 4797 having the same parameters as the previous attempt. As last year, it is aiming to legalize iGaming in the State of Illinois. The new/old bill would allow the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) to license 3 individual online casinos.
Due to this, online gambling became available to state residents with the age 21 and older and the state would tax 25% of the overall gaming revenue.
Looking at the past years where the topic had been on the table multiple times, the biggest pushback came from “PENN Entertainment” who owns two Casinos in the suburbs of Chicago (Joliet, IL and Aurora, IL) and “Agrosy Casino” who owns one in Alton, Illinois.
Aside from that, Illinois already has a ‘flourishing’ online sports betting scene. The “Sports Wagering Act” legalized online sports wagering in 2019, and in 2021 “mobile sports betting” was added to it. Pages like DraftKings, FanDuel and Caesars for example are allowed to offer betting on most (professional) sports. What is also legal as of right now is Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and online horse race betting.
With the plans of Democrat Gonzalez, live dealer casino games, online slots, poker and table games would be legally added to that.
Last summer, Democrat Kwame Raoul said at the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) that he thinks an iGaming legalization could be possible at some point. With that, Illinois would become the 8th State in the United States that allows real-money online casinos.
The gambling landscape in Illinois is complex with different municipal taxation on e.g. online sports betting. The state itself went from a flat tax of 15% to a so-called progressive tax on sports betting, which means that it adjusts to the revenue of the sport betting provider starting at 20% for the first 30 Million of revenue going up to 40% on revenue above 200 Million Dollars. That system is called ‘adjusted gross sports wagering revenue’ (AGR). The state also added a per-bet tax of $0.25 for the first 20 Million bets per betting company and $0.50 for every bet after that per fiscal year.
Generally speaking, the taxes and fees on sports and online betting in Illinois are among the highest in the country, which makes experts believe that this has driven a lot of traffic to unregulated so called “offshore”-sites.
The gaming board presented a statistic which showed a 15% decline in gambling from the month September to October of last year, saying that other states with legal online betting haven’t seen anything similar.
Chicago's mayor, Brandon Johnson, on top of that introduced a tax of 10.25% on every bet (per-wager tax) placed within the city limits which made The Sport Betting Alliance, consisting of companies like FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, Fanatics and bet365, to sue the city (as betting is already taxed and regulated by the state.) The reason for adding this new tax was a big gap in the city budget.
That being said, Rep. Gonzales, with the presented bill, wants to set a general framework for the whole state on iGaming. A license would cost $250.000 with a renewal fee of $100.000 each fiscal year. It also requires each online casino to have multiple responsible gaming controls (self-exclusion: temporary and permanent) and deposit limits.
Advancing the bill within the state Senate has a 50/50 chance. iGaming gets more popular every day so it’s not a surprise that the bill is back in discussion, but looking back previous efforts have led nowhere.
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