For the second consecutive year, the Illinois legislature chose to balance its budget with a crippling tax on legal online sports betting operators and their million plus Illinois customers — this time with no warning and no consideration of the devastating impact this tax would have on the legal market.
Make no mistake, this discriminatory, punitive and constitutionally suspect tax increase on legal sportsbooks who have invested more than a billion dollars in the state will be destabilizing for regulated sports betting in Illinois. A per bet tax most penalizes small recreational bettors — many of whom are betting a single dollar or two. Under this legislation, these popular bets will get hit with a massive 25% or 50% tax on handle. Customers understand that they will be the ones to bear the cost of this new tax. That’s why Illinois customers sent more 76,000 emails and tweets to their representatives asking them to stop this discriminatory tax. With this change, lawmakers are essentially urging customers – and especially these small dollar bettors – to switch to unsafe and unregulated sportsbooks who defy state consumer protections and generate zero taxes for state priorities. These illegal operators are the big winners from Saturday’s vote.
It’s also extremely disappointing that the legislature chose to pass this tax and disregard the $1 billion in new revenue that a regulated and consumer-protected iGaming market would provide Illinois — allowing instead to let the current unregulated iGaming market that lacks any real consumer protections thrive.
This is not the end of this conversation. We will continue to fight this discriminatory tax alongside our customers – both right now in Illinois and in any state that considers these harmful tax changes in the future.
– Sports Betting Alliance