IL Sportsbooks Expand To 6 After Hollywood Casino Openings

The Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) gave out eight licenses for sportsbooks in the state to open when the pastime became legal.
Both Hollywood Casino locations have opened, marking the fifth and sixth sports betting venues to begin business, leaving two sportsbooks left to launch.
These two properties add the total of Penn National Gaming sportsbook operations in Illinois to three with the first being the Argosy Casino Alton.

AURORA, Ill. – Illinois is now home to six land-based sportsbooks as both of their Hollywood Casino locations, one in Aurora and the other in Joliet, launched their sportsbooks on Thursday.

The sports gambling aspect of these casinos is run by Penn National Gaming.

These sports betting facilities only offer land-based options at this time which is not an uncommon theme for Illinois sportsbooks as it is more difficult to obtain licensure for mobile sports wagering applications in the Prairie State.

The New Sportsbooks At Hollywood Casino

Both Hollywood Casinos offer a multitude of wager types ranging from live in-game betting, straight up wagers, parlays, props, futures, and a plethora of other wager types.

Gambling on the games takes place at kiosks within the space where sports bettors can pick and choose the bets they’d like to place like self-checkout at the grocery store and their betting slip will then be printed out once their picks are made.

Major sports from all over are covered with odds at these sportsbooks including cricket, MMA, football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and even darts.

Professional and college matches are up for bets except for any college events that occur in Illinois or are being played by an Illinois state team. Those are prohibited by law.

Since the Hollywood Casinos chose Penn National Gaming as their operator of choice, they offer the mychoice rewards program to patrons. Once these locations are eligible to offer their customers internet and mobile gaming, they could be part of the up and coming Penn National and Barstool Sports betting application currently in the works.

At this time there are only two casinos in Illinois that have mobile sportsbooks for their gamblers to enjoy.

Rivers Casino in Des Plaines was the first to launch an online application for wagering on sports in the state with BetRivers. They were meant to be the sole operator of the mobile sports betting world in the Prairie State for quite some time until DraftKings found a loophole to which they used to their advantage.

DraftKings would later make a deal with Casino Queen to begin operating both a retail sports betting venue and an internet platform.

The deal for the famous sportsbook conglomerate was done so mainly to get access to the online audience of sports bettors in Illinois as it was a nearly untapped market with just one platform.

The retail factor has only helped to further their presence in the state while still being able to offer Illinois residents their mobile sportsbook application which was the goal, to begin with.

Illinois Sports Betting

While Illinois only has two online sports betting platforms available, they are still required by law to register for a membership in-person to enjoy this convenience. Something that casinos wish to do away with in the future.

The Hollywood Casinos became number three and number four to roll out sports betting to the public this month. William Hill got the ball rolling on the first of August with their sportsbook at the Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin and then DraftKings opened at Casino Queen in East St. Louis.

This makes for a total of six operational sports wagering locations in Illinois with Rivers Casino in Des Plaines and their BetRivers sportsbook and Argosy Casino Alton with their Penn National Gaming sports betting being the first two to open up shop in the state.

The Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) dealt a total of eight licenses to casinos statewide. The final two that gamblers are eagerly awaiting the opening of are Hawthorne Race Course who has chosen PointsBet as their operator and Par-A-Dice in East Peoria and their FanDuel Sportsbook.

Advertising Disclosure

In order to provide you with the best independent sports betting news and content LegalSportsBetting.com may receive a commission from partners when you make a purchase through a link on our site.

Christina Monroe

Christina has been writing for as long as she can remember and does dedicated research on the newly regulated sports betting market. She comes from a family of sports lovers that engage in friendly bets from time to time. During the winter months, you can find Christina baking cookies and beating the entire staff at Mario Kart…the N64 version of course.