The Illinois legislature’s sneak play late Saturday night may just come back to haunt it. While sports betting operators seem to have absorbed last year’s massive tax hike, analysts say this latest attempt to squeeze more tax dollars from the gambling sector may well have the opposite effect.
The inserted language into its FY 2026 budget includes a first-of-its-kind per-wager tax. Operators would pay 25 cents per wager made on the first 20 million bets placed during the year and 50 cents per wager above the 20 million threshold. That’s 25 or 50 cents whether the bet is $1 or $1,000. Both legislative chambers passed the budget late Saturday night, and Gov. JB Pritzker is expected to sign it. It would go into effect July 1.
“It’s likely to do two things,” Joe Stauff, a senior equity analyst at Susquehanna, told InGame.
