Illinois Online Gambling Sites
Illinois gambling sites in 2024 offer legal online casinos, sportsbooks, and horse betting for all players from the Prairie State. Online gambling sites in IL allow players to pick and choose from their selection of gaming options, much like all the toppings that Illinois residents get to choose from when putting together an order of their famed deep-dish pizzas. All of these types of online gambling in Illinois are legal through many of the best USA online gambling sites that operate in the state. For more on the best online casinos, poker sites, and sportsbooks in Illinois, continue below.
StateIllinois
Population12.67 Million
Largest Gambling CitiesChicago, Springfield
Number Of Land Based Casinos10
Gambling Revenue$1.4 Billion
State Licensed DFSYes
State Licensed Sports BettingYes
Land Based Poker Rooms10
Lottery ServicesYes
Mobile Betting OptionsSports Betting
Best Illinois Gambling Sites
The first thing you need to do when you’re looking up a USA online gambling site in Illinois is that it must be a licensed gambling provider. Gambling can be state-licensed, or licensed outside of the United States, but please make sure that the places you choose to gamble at are regulated and licensed. The next thing you need to do is trust reputation – sites have good reputations for a reason, and they have bad reputations for a reason. It’s very easy to just look at some reviews of gambling websites before spending money there – a second opinion can be valuable in this business. When we recommend a website to you here, we are doing so as people – the person writing this has used these websites.
Best Online Sportsbooks
Top Online Casinos In The USA
Best Online Poker Sites That Accept US Players
How We Pick The Best Illinois Gambling Sites
Different Types Of Online Gambling In Illinois
The two most popular types of online gambling in Illinois, as well as in many other states, are sports betting and online casino gaming. However, there is very little limit on what you can do online in the state of Illinois – you can play virtual slot machines, you can play daily fantasy sports, you can play bingo, you can do just about anything. You can even bet on animals – horse racing is a popular pastime, and betting on horse racing is something of an American tradition. In addition, you can play poker, or play the state-run lottery, if you’re interested in that kind of thing as well. Basically, the sky is the limit when it comes to the types of online gambling in Illinois.
Best Illinois Online Casino
Online casinos in Illinois are legal when using internationally recognized providers such as Bovada, Ignition, and BetOnline. Each site offers hundreds of slots, table games, and more all under one umbrella. The best and most popular Illinois online casino is like Bovada, where players sign up and get a large bonus and more overall gambling options than any other betting site. Bovada is a one-stop-shop for all players looking to gamble online in IL, with features such as the casino, poker room, and even sportsbook making it even more diverse than other USA online casino sites. The Bovada casino bonus in Illinois can be used for the first three deposits by new players, with a maximum value of at least $1,000 on a 100% match for each bonus no matter the chosen deposit method.
Benefits of Illinois Online Casinos:
Best Illinois Online Poker Site
Ignition has been a trusted Illinois online poker site for many years and has always brought Illinois players a great online gambling experience. The online poker site has bonuses that can be redeemed through new player cryptocurrency and credit card deposits. They have the option for single matches and large tournaments that can be entered for live action on the site. Along with the tournaments, Ignition offers weekly knockout events than any other USA poker sites.
Benefits of Illinois Online Poker:
Best Online Slot Site In Illinois
Legal online slot sites in Illinois are not available through any state-regulated casino or gambling company, but that does not stop residents from playing online slots in IL. Popular online slot sites in Illinois are legal if they are based internationally, with Slots LV earning the title of best gambling site for slots in Illinois. There is stiff competition for that honor as many of the best online slot sites in the USA accept Illinois residents, but the Slots LV bonus that can reach up to $7,500 is impossible to beat. Slots LV offers players many different types of slot games, with various numbers of reels and pay lines for all their hot drop jackpots, progressive slots, and automated casino games.
Benefits of Illinois Online Slots:
Best Online Sportsbook In Illinois
While there are many different options for online and in-person sports betting in Illinois, Bovada is one of the only Illinois online sportsbooks that has zero restrictions on college betting. Bovada offers live and future odds for player props, for in and out-of-state teams. All of these odds and props can be wagered on from a mobile device and players can redeem big new player bonuses up to $750. Bovada also offers hundreds of different ways to bet on the Chicago Bears, Illinois Fighting Illini, and the Loyola Ramblers, with that range of collegiate betting odds considerably larger than other online sportsbooks for US players.
Benefits of Illinois Online Sportsbooks:
Best Online DFS Site In Illinois
Daily fantasy sports has always been popular in Illinois and FanDuel is one of the leading apps in the state. FanDuel allows Illinois players to create lineups for daily competitions, with a minimum entry fee of five dollars. Whether using any Chicago Bears players in the lineup or deciding to outsource completely, FanDuel can help players in Illinois win big. Their DFS app offers instant deposits and fast payouts through credit cards, bank transfers and person to person services like PayPal.
Benefits of Illinois Online DFS:
Best Illinois Online Bingo Site
There are many different bingo games at Bovada that can help players win big in Illinois. This Illinois online casino offers a variety of games that function similarly to online slots, but with the bonus of being able to buy extra balls for cheap to try to form the lines that are needed to cash out. Go-Go Bingo is one of the most popular features of Bovada's real money online bingo site, with minimum bets set at $0.4 and maximum bets of $20 for each spin.
Benefits of Illinois Online Bingo:
Best Online Lottery Site In Illinois
While Illinois offers a state lottery to all of their players, the state does not have any online scratch-offs available. However, BetOnline has multiple scratch off games that can be played by everyone in Illinois. Instead of risking the physical paper scratch-offs blowing away in the windy city, BetOnline’s online lottery ticket site offers faster results and payouts. New players can also redeem big Illinois welcome crypto bonuses that can be used to use BetOnline’s casino.
Best Illinois Online Horse Racing Site
As horse racing is a popular form of gambling in Illinois, Bovada has one of the best online racebooks that features a little something for all players in The Prairie State. Players will see that the Bovada racebook has more odds than any other horse betting sites, with ways to wager on each horse to win and place for events that are live or about to begin. Bovada also offers future odds for all of the biggest horse racing events in the US and has big bonuses that can be accepted before placing any horse wagers.
Benefits of Illinois Online Horse Racing:
Is It Legal To Use Bovada In Illinois?
Bovada is one of the biggest Illinois online gambling websites on the internet, and there are a lot of questions surrounding them as far as many normal people go. One of the big questions that we get all the time is whether or not it is fully legal to use Bovada in many US states. Here’s how that situation breaks down. Basically, a lot of states criminalize the creation and operation of online gambling parlors, but those state laws apply to their states. Bovada isn’t located inside those states, and is out of the reach of those laws. These states tend not to criminalize the act of using a website like Bovada, which means that players are free to use it as long as the state does not have a specific rule against it.
Mobile Gambling In Illinois
Illinois mobile gambling comes to the state via online gambling websites, for the most part. Many of these mobile gambling sites do not have apps, however. They way they work is they designed their website to show up on mobile differently, and feel like an app when you use it. In this way, they cut out the middleman – no downloads necessary. All you have to do is go to the online gambling website of your choice while using your mobile device’s internet browser.
Mobile Sports Betting Apps
Mobile sports betting apps are live in Illinois, with each of the state sanctioned online sportsbooks offering a proprietary app for customers within the borders of IL. In addition to these apps, many of the online gambling websites, all of which include sportsbooks as part of their experience, have mobile-based websites, where you visit their Illinois online sportsbook on a mobile device and then you are served an app-like experience with all the functionality of a full website but on your phone.
Mobile Casinos Apps
Just like the previous two sections, there are no mobile casino apps available in the state of Illinois. However, also like the previous two sections, there are still excellent options for Illinois gamblers who want the casino experience on their phone. All of the online gambling websites have adapted to the modern age by making their websites work well on mobile browsers as well as on normal computers.
Real Money Online Gambling Sites In Illinois
The best real money gambling websites that serve Illinois customers are located outside of the country – and this allows them to offer wide ranges of gambling options, unrestricted by the rules of the United States.
You can deposit at these real money gambling sites with many of the ways you are familiar with in regular living – credit cards, visa gift cards, money orders, and more – as well as some that you might not be familiar with, like cryptocurrency. You can receive withdrawals via similar, though not exactly the same, methods. Overall, real money gambling in Illinois is easy to get started with, and once you get started, it's even easier to continue.
Free Online Gambling In Illinois
Maybe you don’t want to risk money, though? It’s not crazy to play some casino games for free to learn how to play, especially with games like poker and blackjack where there’s a decent amount of thinking to be done, and things to learn. The major online gambling websites tend to offer the ability to play for free on some games as well, simply to get familiar with it. The idea here is that you can play for free to hone your skills before moving on to real money gambling, but you can just play for free if that’s what you want. Learn more about free online gambling here.
Is Online Gambling Legal In Illinois
Online gambling is legal in Illinois as long as you know what you are doing. If you want to play casino-style games, bet on sports, play slot machines online, or play poker, you have to use one of the online gambling websites that are accessible by Illinois residents. Certain types of online gambling, such as sports betting, have been legalized, but are not publicly available yet. These websites are generally located in different countries, usually Costa Rica or Canada, which means that you can access them with no repercussions, and they can offer betting of various types without the interference of the US government. There is a law called UIGEA, which prevents financial institutions from knowingly processing gambling-related transactions, but that affects financial institutions, not people.
Online Gambling Laws In Illinois
Online gambling laws in Illinois have an interesting history. The basic gist of the online gambling laws in Illinois is that they criminalized running a gambling establishment in the state, which is why most of our recommendations here are for offshore gambling websites, who are not subject to the laws of the United States. The laws do not, however, criminalize the act of gambling – and that is the legal status that the online gambling websites use to allow people to utilize them, in that they are technically not contravening the law. Certain types of online gambling have been state sanctioned, but are not available to the public yet.
Legal Gambling Age In Illinois
One very important thing to do is to make sure you are above the legal age to gamble in your state. In all of the 50 American states, there are age requirements to gamble. In Illinois, they vary depending on what type of gambling you are doing. Learn more about Legal Gambling Ages here.- Lottery: 18
- Parimutuel: 18
- Casinos: 21
- Bingo: 18
- Online Poker: 18
- DFS: 21
- Sports Betting: 21
Where Are Illinois Gambling Sites Regulated
Illinois sports betting launched in 2021, and now it serves as a major driver of government revenue growth in the state. Right now, the best option for Illinois gambling websites tends to be the offshore ones, which are regulated in their respective locations. For example, many online sportsbooks are regulated in Costa Rica, which has reduced restrictions on sports betting, and many poker websites are regulated in Canada, which has looser limitations on poker.
This means that these places are subject to the rules and regulations of their home countries, and not the USA. However, don’t mistake that for a lack of regulation – they must comply with all regulations in their country in order to be a licensed gaming provider.
Who Can Play At Illinois Online Gambling Sites
When it comes to online gambling websites, these websites are available to most of the United States, actually, not just people in Illinois. If you are physically located in Illinois, you should be able to use these websites. When it comes to the Illinois specific websites that launched in 2021, those are for Illinois residents only.
Taxes On Gambling Winnings In Illinois
The big thing you need to know is that gambling revenue is counted as income for the purposes of taxation, and is subject to taxation by the government. It is worth logging your winnings and losses and perhaps retaining an accountant to avoid getting into trouble with the government.
Gambling Revenue In Illinois
Illinois sees online gambling revenue from both the lottery and sports betting. The lottery revenue goes towards helping schools, although there is some debate as to the effectiveness of this strategy, compared to simply raising taxes. There are plenty of planned expansions to gambling in Illinois coming in the future, although they tend to be focused on specific locations such as sports stadiums rather than more methods of online gambling. In 2021, the state brought in more than a billion dollars via newly regulated gambling markets - they crossed the billion dollar mark in October.
Future Of Illinois Online Gambling
Online gambling in Illinois hoped for expansion in 2023, with House Bill 2239 and Senate Bill 1656 but neither passed their chamber. In 2024, similar bills are being introduced and discussed to legalize online casinos in Illinois. Once an online gambling law is passed, it often takes at least a year before launch. With this, don't expect to see online casinos taking Illinois players that are regulated by the Illinois Gaming Board until 2025 at the earliest.