Illinois’ Video Gambling Take is Now Beating Casino Revenues

This is the very first year that video gambling has added more to state coffers than casino gambling since Illinois began keeping track of these things in 2012.

I'm not a gambler myself (although I have absolutely zero problem with others doing it), but it seems as though there are plenty people ready to take my seat at the video gambling machines.

Enough other people to bring in the total of $296 million, which was collected from the video gambling machines over the span of the 2017 fiscal year, ending on June 30th.

From CasinoGamesPro:

In comparison, the earnings data, which was issued by the gambling venues in the state of Illinois showed that the casino venues have managed to amass about $270 million. This marks rates which are $7 million less than what the gaming facilities reached during the previous fiscal year. In the state, there are a total of ten casino venues operating at the moment and they were not able to reach the popularity of video gambling, as the results showed.

There were only 2 casino facilities that managed to top video gambling--Rivers Casino located in Des Plaines and Hollywood Casino in Aurora. Revenue from video gambling in Illinois is split between state and local governments, the companies that own the video machines, and the business owners.

CasinoGamesPro adds:

In the state, there are some restrictive caps on the number of casinos which could operate, however, video gambling does not go through such strict regulation. By the end of the 2017 fiscal year, there were a total of 26,783 video gaming terminals located in 6,124 venues in the state of Illinois. Only several months later this number has swelled to 27,681 terminals, demonstrating the vast influence of video gambling in the region.