Led by lottery sales, gambling revenues in Illinois set a record of nearly $1.9 billion to the state during the last fiscal year. The previous record was $1.4 billion in 2019, a 35.7 percent increase. Illinois’ fiscal year runs from July to June.
Lottery sales brought in more than $833 million during the 2021-2022 fiscal year, according to a recently released report by the Illinois General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
That was a 6 percent increase from the previous fiscal year and was achieved despite a decrease in actual sales. The rise came from fewer winners and reduced operating expenses, according to Keith Horton, general manager of Camelot Illinois, the state’s lottery contractor.
Horton told the Daily Herald in Chicago that the increase also came from the state’s “iLottery platform,” which can be played online or via mobile app. He said it accounted for approximately $279 million in sales, a 64 percent increase from the prior year.
“Online lottery play is an integral and growing segment of the Illinois Lottery’s offering,” Horton said. “Regular technology updates to the online platform improve the player experience and have helped drive growth over the past few years.”
Another big winner for the state was video machines. A change in the state law allowing establishments to have more machines, as well as an increase in the state’s share of video gambling revenues, brought in $762 million for Illinois. That was an increase of 52 percent from the previous fiscal year.
“Casinos are getting back to revenue totals they were seeing before the pandemic, and that’s at a time when there are multiple new gaming outlets available to casino patrons,” said Tom Thanas, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association, told the Herald. “I think there was pent-up demand and people wanted to get out and socialize.”
Not everyone was pleased with the increase. Zach Savella Stallard, coordinator at the Illinois chapter of Stop Predatory Gambling, told the Herald that easier access to gambling in the state has led to an increase in gambling addiction.
“Gambling addiction provides a number of problematic outcomes in people’s lives,” said Savella Stallard said. “It’s a source of revenue that takes advantage of people experiencing addiction, and that’s not the way we should be funding our state and actually causes more costs because of the social costs of this addiction.”
The commission’s report also cautioned about depending too much on future gambling revenues to fund the state’s budget needs.
“With so many entities competing for the gaming dollar, the question continues to be whether Illinois can support this level of expansion,” the report read. “If so, State and local government coffers will greatly benefit from the additional tax revenue generated by these gaming sources. If not, more questions arise, such as which entities will be the winners and losers of this resulting oversaturation.”
