Online Gambling Laws Are Complicated. Online gambling isn’t exactly legal everywhere, but it isn’t. Online gambling is the act of placing wagers on risk-based games for the chance of winning money. Sports matches, casino games and popular card games like poker are common forms of online gambling. Is online gambling legal in the USA? There is no U.S. Federal law against gambling online, as a player. At the federal level, gambling online is perfectly legal, because of the lack of a law against it. Attorney Catherine Hanaway admitted in a House hearing that just placing wagers online doesn't violate federal law. Virginia Online Casinos. The frenzy that caught many technology-loving citizens, regarding the United States online gambling expansion, is not necessarily a phenomenon that we might see at a prevailing level in the law-creating structures of the states. Virginia is at the bottom of the list when it comes to the prospect of instating such a regulation. Mobile gambling refers to playing games of chance or skill for money by using a remote device such as a tablet computer, smartphone or a mobile phone with a wireless Internet connection. In-play gambling. In-play gambling is a feature on many online sports betting websites that allows the user to bet while the event is in progress. A benefit of live in-play gambling is that there are much.

With thousands, if not tens of thousands, of online casinos in operation right now, is it possible to find the one best site or app? With all of the choices you have in front of you, how do you pick the right one?

While you can easily check a list of the best casinos, it still a better thing to learn how to evaluate your available choices by knowing what factors to consider. Here are some of them.

What matters to you the most?

Each online casino has its selling point and finding the best one is all about what you prefer and what is more important to you. Here are some things to consider.

Bonuses and freebies

Almost all online casinos offer generous freebies and bonuses to their new players and even their old loyal ones. It differs, however, in the specific bonuses as well as how big they are willing to go when giving you the freebies. Get to know not only how much the bonuses are but also the terms that come with it.

Deposit and withdrawal options

Each payment and withdrawal method works differently. It is important to know what you have with you, and how it would work should you use it as your primary means of funding your online gambling as well as getting your money out of it.

The games

While an online casino with a full roster of games would mean they offer almost everything–from slots to table games to card games–you may want to check not on the entirety of the roster but on the specific game or games, you are interested in playing.

If you are more of a poker person, colorful and fun slots would not mean anything to you, but varied options on many poker types would surely be a good deal for you. If you are more of a table game person, it does not matter that they have interactive video poker, a live roulette would be more appealing to you.

The platform you will play on

While most people now have a smartphone and have access to mobile internet, the platform you prefer to play online is also something to consider.

Do you often play on your computer? If you play on mobile, are you comfortable with keeping an app installed on your device, or do you prefer going to a site via your mobile browser? If you prefer the latter, you have to make sure that your chosen site to play on is optimized for mobile viewing, or you would have a hard time navigating through things.

Do your own ‘investigation’

While all the above-mentioned things can be considered relative and would still boil down to each individual’s personal preference, one thing that is a common ground of interest for everyone is security. When it comes to making a choice, going where you are safe and secure is one of the things that should matter the most, even when it comes to online gambling. It should be one of the things on the top of your list, especially since you would be dishing out real money to whatever site or app you will eventually choose.

With that being said, you do not need to have the skills and resources on the same level as an FBI agent to do an efficient “investigation.” For starters, you can scour the internet to check on the reputation of your prospective online casino. Are they known to have occasional “glitches” and bugs on their games? Do they pay out on time, or are they known for being delayed in paying their players? However, pay attention to the reviews or feedback you can find online, too, as fake negative and fake positive feedback are rampant and may deceive you if you are not careful enough.

It is a glorious time to gamble in Illinois. The Land of Lincoln has casinos, sportsbooks, horsetracks, and a host of other gaming options available.

Obviously, the buzz both inside Illinois and around the US is about sports betting. However, Illinois also has other gambling options including sweepstake casinos, lottery and horse racing.

This page will provide you with the latest news on Illinois gambling laws, what and how sweepstakes sites work and what you can expect to see when it comes to Illinois online casinos.

Sweepstakes casinos accepting Illinois players

Latest Illinois Gambling Updates

Last update: March 8, 2021

Customers will continue to have the ability to sign up for sports betting accounts from home. Gov. JB Pritzker recently announced he has once again extended mobile registration till April 3.

Additionally, Churchill Downs has decided to sellArlington International Racecourse.

Churchill is a current applicant for the Waukegan casino license so experts have speculated Churchill plans to transfer its gaming license.

Other applicants for the Waukegan license are Full House Resorts and North Point Casino.

Is online gambling legal in Illinois?

Yes, but only sweepstakes casinos.

There are several different ways that you can gamble online in Illinois. However, two notable exceptions are online casinos and online poker.

Illinois has not approved laws for either type of site just yet. The good news, though, is that with nearby states with online casinos and poker up and running (Michigan), Illinois lawmakers will be able to observe the positive effect on the state’s bottom line and, naturally, want the same for themselves.

So, although online casinos and poker are not part of Illinois’ offerings just yet, they are probably not too far away from becoming a reality.

Sweepstakes sites and playing online casino games in IL

One option that may tide you over until there is a move to regulate IL online casinos and poker sites, is a sweepstakes site. If you’ve never heard about sweepstakes casino and poker sites before, they may seem a bit hard to believe. You can play some pretty entertaining online slots in Illinois, and it’s completely legal.

Your top options for sweepstakes sites in Illinois are the following:

• Global Poker (online poker)

Sweepstakes are present everywhere. Technically, these sites belong in the same category as PCH or the fast-food sweepstakes. Essentially, as long as you can play for free and the prizes are awarded as advertised, the site is good to go. Sweepstakes sites are able to offer a host of online casino games and poker through a dual-currency system that allows their classification to remain valid. You can win real cash prizes at these sites.

So, here are some of the options you have at your disposal:

• Slot games – These are indistinguishable from their online casino counterparts. They can be played with both play money and real money equivalents, and offer big payouts and progressive jackpots in the same way as a normal online casino would. You can also find video poker games on sweepstakes sites, too.
• Table games – Options for table games are decidedly more limited, but you can still find them if you prefer to play that way. Obviously, blackjack is the most common game to find, but you can also see options for roulette, keno, and Caribbean stud poker on various sites.
• Online Poker – Poker games are almost exclusively found on Global Poker, unsurprisingly. Global offers the ability to play no-limit Texas hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, and Crazy Pineapple in cash game, tournament, and sit-n-go formats.

When you first play on one of these sites, the dual currencies might be a bit hard to grasp. However, after the shock wears off, you’ll find that many of these sites do quite well as stopgaps until Illinois gets online casino gambling and poker in earnest. For that matter, you may even find that the sweepstakes sites are great options in their own right, anyway.

Illinois gambling laws

There are multiple types of gambling that Illinois inhabitants can enjoy. Both online and land-based options abound, and the list of opportunities is growing longer each month.

Riverboat casinos have been a fixture in the Land of Lincoln for more than thirty years. There are 10 different floating properties scattered throughout Illinois, although most are clustered around Chicago and St. Louis, the latter of which is just across the Mississippi River in Missouri.

Alongside the riverboats are scads of locations with video gaming terminals (VGTs). VGTs are electronic lottery machines that have little difference, functionally, from a regular slot machine. They have been part of life in Illinois since 2009 and gained full legal status thanks to the massive expansion of gambling in 2019.

That expansion also ushered both online and retail sports betting into Illinois. Retail sports betting is now present at a majority of Illinois’ riverboat casinos, is available at racetracks and OTBs, and may even be available at major sports arenas throughout the state.

There are also multiple active sportsbook apps in Illinois right now. That number is certain to grow, and the sunsetting of the in-person registration requirement in September 2021 should only make the Prairie State a more attractive market for other sports betting companies.

Finally, it is also possible to play the Illinois Lottery, bet on horseraces, and engage in daily fantasy sports through your mobile devices and computers in Illinois. So, there is no shortage of options for Illinois residents and visitors who want to join the fun.

Other forms of legal gambling

Online sports betting launched in Illinois in June 2020. BetRivers Sportsbook, which is owned by Rush Street Interactive (which also owns Rivers Des Plaines), became the first sports betting app to launch in Illinois. Since then, multiple apps have joined the party, including: DraftKings, FanDuel, PointsBet, and William Hill.

Alongside online sports betting, Illinois residents and visitors are also able to bet on horse races through the TVG racing site. Online horse betting is available in the Prairie State through a variety of sites.

Finally, Illinoisans and guests to the state can also play in daily fantasy sports play if they choose. An Illinois Supreme Court ruling in April 2020 definitively identified DFS as not gambling and has legitimized the notion of playing the game in some capacity in Illinois.

Casino and riverboat locations in Illinois

Best Online Gambling Sites

The most obvious places to play in Illinois are its casinos. Each casino, at the time of its construction, was required to be on water. So, most of the casino options are riverboats moored permanently on waterways. However, there is at least one casino (Rivers Des Plaines) that is simply resting in a shallow pit filled with water.

The casinos each offer different options for gaming, but, in general, they have slot machines and table games in many varieties. Whether they have sports betting and poker onsite is a different matter, however. Here are all the riverboat casino locations in Illinois:

• Argosy Casino Alton – Alton*
• DraftKings at Casino Queen – East St. Louis*
• Grand Victoria Casino – Elgin ‡
• Harrah’s Joliet Casino & Hotel – Joliet †
• Harrah’s Metropolis Casino & Hotel – Metropolis
• Hollywood Casino Aurora – Aurora ‡
• Hollywood Casino Joliet – Joliet*
• Jumer’s Casino & Hotel – Rock Island †
• Par-A-Dice Hotel Casino – East Peoria*
• Rivers Casino Des Plaines – Des Plaines*

*Sportsbook onsite

†Poker room onsite

‡Both sportsbook and poker room onsite

All 10 have a variety of slots, including reel slots and progressive slots, plus video poker.

Illinois law does not permit casinos to remain open 24 hours, which means most will close their doors for two to four hours each day during the early morning.

The Illinois Gambling Act authorizes six additional casinos to be built in Illinois in the following locations:

• Chicago
• Danville
• Waukegan
• Rockford
• Williamson County (near Carbondale)
• Cook County in either Bloom, Bremen, Calumet, Rich, Thornton or Worth

The new law also allows the riverboat casinos to finally become land-based casinos after paying a fee and obtaining regulators’ approval to do so.

The existing casinos will be allowed to expand their operations from 1,200 to 2,000 “gaming positions” should they desire, with such expansion also requiring the payment of a position fee for every added position.

Meanwhile, the new Chicago “mega-casino” will be much bigger, with 4,000 gaming positions.

Illinois video gaming terminals

Since 2009, video gaming terminals, or VGTs, have been available throughout Illinois at licensed retail establishments.

You’ll often find them in establishments with liquor licenses like restaurants, bars, convenience stores and hotels. Truck stops and fraternal or veteran’s organizations with national charters also have them.

Is There Online Gambling In New York

The law initially allowed each establishment up to five VGTs in one location. However, the Illinois Gambling Act amended the Video Gaming Act to increase that number to six while also allowing “large truck stops” to operate up to 10 VGTs.

Other changes to the law include increasing the maximum bet (from $2 to $4), increasing the maximum win (from $500 to $1,199), the authorization of progressive jackpots and an increase in the tax imposed from 30% to 33%.

The VGTs are housed in stand-alone, slant-top cabinets or upright cabinets set on a base such as a bar.

The machines are very much like video slots. However, unlike the slots in casinos, each VGT typically features a wide variety of games from which to choose, including slots and video poker games.

In late 2019 there were more than 6,800 establishments with VGTs in Illinois, making the state the country’s leader by a wide margin over Nevada, which has around 2,000 locations.

Responsible gambling in Illinois

Illinois has several measures in place to protect and assist problem gamblers.

In 2002, the Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) launched the Statewide Riverboat Voluntary Self-Exclusion Program for Problem Gamblers, known as SEP.

The program allows those who determine they are problem gamblers to self-exclude themselves from Illinois casinos. The new gambling expansion law extends SEP to sports wagering as well.

In 2018, the IGB additionally established the Problem Gambling Registry for Video Gaming.

Those who enroll receive regular emails providing information about problem gambling with links to problem gambling prevention and treatment resources in the state. The program is available both to Illinois and out-of-state residents.

The Illinois Department of Human Services has also developed a website to provide support and advice for problem gamblers — WeKnowTheFeeling.org — that also invites problem gamblers to contact them by phone at 1-800-GAMBLER.

The IGB site also provides additional information regarding these programs and other help for problem gamblers.

Historical overview of legal gambling in Illinois

Legal and regulated pari-mutuel horse race betting in Illinois dates back to 1927.

Illinois first introduced the lottery in 1974, joining the first big wave of states to do so. Later in 2012, Illinois became the first state to offer online lottery ticket sales and is still one of a limited number of states that do.

Riverboat gambling has been legal in Illinois since 1990 and, in fact, Illinois was the second state in the US to legalize riverboat gambling after Iowa. A year later, the first riverboat casino opened the Alton Belle (then to become the Argosy Casino Alton).

For the first several years, the boats were required to leave docks and set sail at regular intervals, but that is no longer the case. At present, 10 riverboat casinos are operating either on boats or docked barges or on what are essentially land-based properties resting in shallow water.

In 2009, the Video Gaming Act was enacted in Illinois, allowing the placement of VGTs in licensed retail locations, truck stops, and veteran and fraternal establishments.

More recently, in June 2019, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Illinois Gambling Act, a law allowing for significant gambling expansion in the state. The new law permits six new casinos to be built, including one “mega-casino” near Chicago.

It also allows the existing casinos and racetracks to expand the number of “gaming positions” they can offer, including allowing the tracks to become “racinos” by adding slots and table games.