Gambling in Illinois: Statistics on Losses, Taxes, Growth and Treatment
How much do people in Illinois lose to legal gambling, which kinds of gambling take the most, what does the state collect, and how much of it goes back into treatment? This page puts video gaming terminals, casinos, sports betting and the lottery side by side using the state's own figures, and says plainly where Illinois publishes no data at all. It is maintained by Chris Beerman, LCSW, CADC, a gambling addiction therapist in Chicago.
- Compiled by
- Chris Beerman, MSW, LCSW, CADC
- Primary sources
- IGB, CGFA, Auditor General, IDHS
- Latest complete year
- FY2026 (lottery estimated)
- Last reviewed
- October 9, 2026
- Update schedule
- Quarterly
- Standards
- editorial standards · corrections
Quick answers
How much do people lose gambling in Illinois each year?
About $8.03 billion in fiscal 2026 (July 2025 to June 2026) across the four legal products: $3.31 billion on video gaming terminals, $2.05 billion at casinos, $1.48 billion on sports betting and an estimated $1.19 billion on the lottery. That is about $796 per adult resident, up from $7.39 billion ($732 per adult) in fiscal 2025. It does not include out-of-state casinos, prediction markets, daily fantasy or offshore sites.
Which kind of gambling takes the most money in Illinois?
Video gaming terminals in bars, restaurants and gas stations: 41% of legal gambling losses in FY2026, more than casinos and the lottery combined. Detail: Illinois video gambling data.
How much tax does Illinois collect from gambling?
$2.66 billion in state revenue in FY2026, by the forecasting commission's count, up 19% in a year, plus about $288 million to the cities and counties that host video gaming and casinos.
How many people in Illinois have a gambling problem?
The most recent statewide estimate, from the 2021 statewide assessment for the Illinois Department of Human Services (published 2022), put 3.8% of adults (about 383,000 people) in the problem range and another 7.7% (about 761,000) at risk. There is no newer statewide study.
How much does Illinois spend on gambling treatment?
The state appropriated $10 million in FY2025 and $15 million in FY2026 for problem gambling treatment and prevention; reporting by Capitol News Illinois and the Illinois Answers Project found about $1.5 million was actually spent in 2025.
How many people get treatment for gambling in Illinois?
Illinois does not publish it. IDHS reports more than 64,000 gambling screenings and assessments in state fiscal 2025, but there is no public annual count of people who entered gambling treatment.
What players lose, product by product
"Losses" means the same thing for every product here: what players wagered minus what was paid back to them. For video gaming that is net terminal income, for casinos and sportsbooks adjusted gross receipts, and for the lottery ticket sales minus prizes. Measured that way, legal gambling losses in Illinois doubled in seven years, from $4.01 billion in FY2019 to $8.03 billion in FY2026 (the FY2026 lottery figure is an estimate). Almost all of the growth came from products that barely existed or were much smaller a decade ago: video gaming added $1.72 billion a year and sports betting $1.48 billion, while the lottery grew about 12%.
The per-adult figure is a way to compare the size of each market, not an estimate of what a typical person lost. Some of this money is lost by visitors from other states, most adults gamble little or not at all, and Illinoisans also lose money at Indiana and Missouri casinos that does not appear here. Losses are also highly concentrated: in most gambling research a small share of gamblers accounts for a large share of the money.
Why this page has no "total amount wagered." The products count wagering in ways that cannot be added. Video gaming's "amount played" ($35.95 billion in FY2026) counts the same dollars again every time winnings are re-bet. Sports betting handle ($15.40 billion) is closer to new money but also includes re-bet winnings. Casinos do not publish how much was wagered at all, and lottery sales ($3.87 billion in FY2026, preliminary) are a third kind of number. Adding them gives a figure over $55 billion that measures nothing in particular. What players lost is the number that compares across products, so it is the one used here.
How each market is growing
Video gaming terminals. 32,033 terminals at the end of FY2019; 49,874 in August 2026. Net terminal income rose from $1.59 billion in FY2019 to $3.31 billion in FY2026 (+7.2% in the latest year), and the growth now comes mostly from more play per machine rather than more machines. Chicago lifted its ban in December 2025 but no city location had reported revenue through August 2026. Video gambling data.
Sports betting. Legal since March 2020. Handle grew from $5.11 billion in FY2021 to $15.40 billion in FY2026, and bettors' losses from $380 million to $1.48 billion, faster than handle because sportsbooks now keep more of each dollar (hold 9.6% in FY2026, against 7.4% in FY2021). Nearly 98% of handle is online. Sports betting data.
Casinos. After nine straight years of decline, casino losses have grown every year since reopening, to $2.05 billion in FY2026, almost entirely because seven casinos have opened since November 2021. The permanent Chicago casino is still to come. Casino data.
Lottery. The one product that has stopped growing: sales were $3.86 billion in FY2024, $3.76 billion in FY2025 and, on preliminary figures, $3.87 billion in FY2026, with players winning about $2.68 billion in prizes. Online lottery sales reached $756 million (preliminary), up from $702 million. The lottery is the only product here that the Illinois Gaming Board does not regulate, and it runs its own separate self-exclusion program.
What the state collects
Illinois took in $2.66 billion in state revenue from gambling in FY2026, up 19% from $2.23 billion in FY2025 and from $1.40 billion in FY2019, according to the forecasting commission's tally of Comptroller receipts. Video gaming ($1.01 billion) brought in more than the lottery ($788 million) for the second year running; sports wagering ($593 million) has passed casinos, whose $262 million rose partly because a recent law (P.A. 104-0002) changed how the State Gaming Fund is allocated. Local governments received about $288 million more from video gaming and casino taxes. Taken together that is a little over a third of every dollar players lost.
Help-seeking, treatment and what Illinois does not measure
Against $7.39 billion lost in FY2025, Illinois appropriated $10 million for problem gambling treatment and prevention, and $15 million for FY2026. On the reported figures, about $1.5 million was actually spent in 2025. For every $1,000 players lost in FY2025, the state set aside about $1.35 and spent about $0.20. The FY2026 appropriation works out to about $1.87 for every $1,000 lost that year. In July 2026 the state codified gambling disorder under the Substance Use Disorder Act (SB 2749), which allows the state to fund treatment for gambling disorder on its own; the law attached no new money.
| Measure | Latest figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Problem gambling prevalence (adults) | 3.8% (about 383,000); 7.7% more at risk | 2021 IDHS statewide assessment (Health Resources in Action, published 2022) |
| Self-exclusion enrollments | 595 in 2025; 16,115 since 2002 | Illinois Gaming Board annual report |
| Gambling screenings and assessments | More than 64,000, state FY2025 | IDHS, March 2026 |
| Helpline contacts | Illinois ranks fourth nationally; no annual series published | IDHS, March 2026 |
| Treatment appropriation | $10M FY2025; $15M FY2026 | Capitol News Illinois, July 2026 |
| Treatment spending | About $1.5M in 2025 (reported) | Capitol News Illinois / Illinois Answers Project |
| People entering gambling treatment | Not published | — |
| Prevalence since 2021 | Not measured | — |
The gaps matter as much as the numbers. Illinois publishes monthly, to the dollar, how much is lost on every machine in every town, but no annual count of people treated for gambling disorder, no helpline series and no prevalence estimate newer than 2021. Self-exclusion enrollment is the closest public proxy for people acting on a problem, and it covers only casinos and sports betting, not the video gaming terminals that take 42% of losses. When the state publishes any of these series, they belong on this page next to the losses.
Clinical context. Every figure on this page measures gambling activity or the state's response to it, not gambling disorder. A rise in losses can mean more people gambling, more gambling per person, or more money from the same small group of people in serious trouble; the data cannot tell these apart. What the numbers do show is how available gambling has become, in bars, on phones and in new casinos near Chicago, and how small the treatment budget is next to it.
Not counted here
Prediction-market sports contracts (no exchange publishes Illinois volume), daily fantasy sports, horse racing (an estimated $95 million in losses in FY2026, left out of the four-product total), charitable gaming, out-of-state and tribal casinos, sweepstakes casinos and offshore betting sites. The true total is higher than the figures above.
Data table
Player losses by product and fiscal year
| Fiscal year | Video gaming | Casinos | Sports wagering | Lottery | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2019 | $1,592.5M | $1,347.1M | — | $1,070.2M | $4,009.8M |
| FY2020 | $1,222.6M | $942.7M | — | $1,002.1M | $3,167.4M |
| FY2021 | $1,934.0M | $897.3M | $380.1M | $1,120.6M | $4,332.0M |
| FY2022 | $2,632.4M | $1,307.5M | $611.3M | $1,183.4M | $5,734.6M |
| FY2023 | $2,821.1M | $1,429.5M | $948.6M | $1,245.2M | $6,444.4M |
| FY2024 | $2,932.5M | $1,618.2M | $1,132.0M | $1,278.2M | $6,960.9M |
| FY2025 | $3,086.3M | $1,815.9M | $1,322.3M | $1,163.6M | $7,388.1M |
| FY2026 | $3,309.5M | $2,052.5M | $1,479.3M | $1,193.5M† | $8,034.8M |
†FY2026 lottery is the forecasting commission's estimate from preliminary, unaudited Lottery figures (sales of $3,869 million less prizes of $2,676 million); the audited figure is due about January 2027. FY2020 sports wagering (March–June 2020, about $0.3 million) is shown as —. Totals reconcile to the forecasting commission's published all-wagering gaming hold less horse racing (FY2026: $8,129.4 million less $94.6 million).
The Illinois gambling data pages
- Illinois video gambling dataTerminals, locations, losses and taxes by town, 2012–2026
- Illinois sports betting dataHandle, revenue, hold, bets, operators and taxes, 2020–2026
- Illinois casino dataRevenue, admissions and taxes for all 17 casinos, 2020–2026
- Illinois Gambling Protection Gap IndexWhat state self-exclusion does and doesn’t block, across ten kinds of gambling
- Gambling disorder treatment in IllinoisLevels of care, state-funded options and what SB 2749 changed
Sources and methods
Losses. FY2019–FY2026 video gaming net terminal income, casino adjusted gross receipts, sports wagering adjusted gross receipts and lottery sales less payouts are the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability's figures (Wagering in Illinois: 2026 Update, October 2026, Figure 3, for FY2020–FY2026; FY2019 from the 2025 Update. The FY2025 lottery figure is consistent with the Auditor General's audited FY2025 sales of $3,755.7 million and prizes of $2,592.6 million). The FY2026 lottery figure ($1,193.5 million) is CGFA's estimate from preliminary, unaudited Lottery data and will be replaced with the Auditor General's audited figure, expected about January 2027. FY2026 video gaming, casino and sports figures computed from Illinois Gaming Board monthly reports, as on the individual data pages, agree with CGFA's to within $1 million. Per-adult figures divide by about 10.1 million adult residents: the Census Bureau's Vintage 2025 Illinois estimate (12,719,141) less the 20.6% under 18.
State revenue. CGFA Figure 1 (2026 Update), state-designated revenue from Comptroller receipts: lottery transfers, the casino transfer to the Education Assistance Fund, video gaming tax to the Capital Projects Fund and sports wagering transfers. Local shares (FY2026: video gaming $161.0 million, casinos $127.1 million; FY2025: $158.8 million and $113.7 million) are from the IGB via CGFA. Help-seeking and treatment. Illinois Gaming Board annual reports (self-exclusion), the IDHS Problem Gambling Awareness Month release of March 2, 2026 (screenings, helpline rank), Capitol News Illinois, July 27, 2026, drawing on an Illinois Answers Project investigation (appropriations and reported spending, labelled as reported journalism), and the 2021 Statewide Assessment of Gambling and Problem Gambling in Illinois by Health Resources in Action for IDHS (published March 2022; prevalence).
Compiled by Chicago Addiction Therapy from Illinois state public records. Free to reuse with attribution; please link to this page. Questions or corrections: chris@chicagoaddictiontherapy.com.
If gambling is a problem for you or someone you love: Illinois helpline 1-800-GAMBLER, or text GAMB to 833234. Crisis: call or text 988.