An Illinois lawmaker launched a invoice earlier this month that might repeal the state’s per-trade tax on prediction markets. The effort follows the levy’s passage in June.
Legislators permitted the tax as a part of a brand new funds signed into legislation by Gov. JB Pritzker (D). The invoice taxes prediction market sports activities contracts at 1.75% for every wager for the primary 5 million transactions. The fee then rises to three.5% for each contract past that.
Rep. Travis Weaver’s (R) invoice (HB 5811) would scrap that plan.
The funds included the levy amongst a number of new taxes. The prediction market tax got here amid a rising controversy surrounding the platforms. Some states allege the exchanges skirt gaming legal guidelines. Weaver pointed to this authorized murkiness in asserting his invoice.
“Typically, you would include a tax in a budget because you think it will raise money, but they actually didn’t include any revenue in the budget for many of these taxes,” he informed SBC Americas.
“Instead, they included money in the budget for the attorney general to defend them because they’re not even sure if these taxes are legal. I think a lot of these things fit under federal interstate commerce and should be handled at the federal level.”
Growing Sports Tax Landscape
Weaver stated he believes Illinois taxpayers already pay an excessive amount of in taxes.
“Look at what we have for online sports wagering,” he stated. “Every time the budget’s a little bit short, we go to the pocket of sports bettors. I think it’s ridiculous that we’re inventing brand-new, first-in-the-nation taxes to get even more money out of the sports betting market.”
Weaver’s invoice appears unlikely to move. The funds invoice handed largely alongside celebration traces, shifting ahead after a 73-41 vote within the Assembly and 36-19 within the Senate. Democrats management each legislative our bodies.
The per-trade tax adopted an identical method for sports activities wagering, which was permitted in June 2025. That added a 25-cent tax on wagers for an operator’s first 20 million bets, then rose to 50 cents per guess past that threshold.
Operators rapidly handed a lot of these prices onto clients. After the variety of bets within the state dipped following passage, Rep. Daniel Didech (D) launched a proposal eliminating the tax altogether in February.
The per-bet tax adopted a tax enhance on sports activities betting in 2024. The state instituted a progressive tax construction on operators as much as 40%.
Sportsbooks criticized the tax construction. Peter Jackson, the then-CEO of FanDuel father or mother firm Flutter Entertainment, stated “there is an optimal level for gaming tax rates that enables operators to provide the best experience for customers, maximize market growth, and maximize revenue for states over time.”
