When legal sports betting launched in Illinois three months ago, some gamblers might’ve expected they’d be putting wagers around the White Sox from inside Guaranteed Rate Field by mid-June.
Rather, they soon could be betting on an unprecedented mid-summer Blackhawks playoff series in the phones in the palms of their hands.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed an executive order Thursday that enables bettors to register for online sports wagering accounts from house, supplying an earlier restart for the rookie business that saw its planned kickoff blocked by the coronavirus pandemic.
The gaming expansion bill signed into law by Pritzker last year requires bettors to register in individual at casinos, racetracks or sports facilities prior to they can place wagers on mobile applications that are managed by these brick-and-mortar gambling meccas.
The Democratic governor’s latest order temporarily removes that in-person registration requirement as a part of the state’s coronavirus response.
“Governor Pritzker’s executive order allows Illinois sports fans to temporarily place wagers from the security of their very own home, guarding a income supply that is critical as the state begins to recover in the damaging monetary influence of COVID-19,” Illinois Gaming Board administrator Marcus Fruchter said inside a Friday announcement. “The Illinois Gaming Board appears forward to welcoming patrons back to casinos when it’s safe to do so.”
The state’s 10 casinos happen to be shut down since March 16, just a week after Blackhawks announcer Eddie Olczyk placed the state’s first-ever legal sports bet at Rivers Casino in Des Plaines.
But even with Pritzker’s latest change, fans will not be able to get in around the action just yet.
From the seven casinos and 3 racetracks that so far have applied for sports betting licenses, only Rivers and the downstate Argosy Casino Alton happen to be granted temporary operating permits by the Gaming Board.
And those are only great for laying odds inside their now-shuttered establishments. They still require to request Gaming Board approval to provide on-line sports wagering, requests that hadn’t been submitted as of Friday afternoon.
Spokesmen for Rivers and Argosy declined to comment. The Gaming Board will hold a virtual meeting June 11, its first meeting because Jan. 30.
Nor is it clear what sports will be around the board whenever Illinoisans can wager from home. The Blackhawks are in line to get a playoff spot under a proposed NHL season restart, but that schedule is in flux along with most other significant American sports. A handful of European soccer leagues were on the board Friday together with a smattering of other contests.
Casino industry leaders nonetheless applauded Pritzker’s order as a lifeline to get a marketplace that was down more than $100 million in the initial month from the shutdown alone.
“It tends to make sense with every thing going on,” Illinois Casino Gaming Association executive director Tom Swoik said. “If we’d had on-line wagering this whole time, we could’ve nonetheless been creating a bit cash and also the state could’ve been creating a little money, a minimum of.”