The sportsbooks’ biggest play: partnerships with the Chicago area’s professional sports teams, racetrack, and casinos. “I look at all five and see what type of odds they place or promos they’re running and then decide,” says Kalina, who years ago sampled legal offshore sportsbooks but found them unreliable. He wagers up to $40 a couple of times a month. Gary Kalina, a 49-year-old area risk management consultant and self-described “casual” sports bettor, has five sportsbook apps on his phone. To win over bettors, who gaming experts say are primarily tech-sharp young and middle-aged men with cash to burn, sportsbooks are spending millions on advertising, phone apps, and gambling incentives, such as cash bonuses for new players. Their take could be higher, but state law prohibits sportsbooks from laying odds on games involving Illinois college teams. These high-tech bookies showcase odds for games, handle betting action, pay winners, and collect from losers - turning a steady profit margin of 4 to 6 percent. That “handle” puts Illinois in hot pursuit of Atlantic City and Las Vegas.Īt least four brand-name online sportsbooks - DraftKings, FanDuel, PointsBet, and BetRivers - have converged on the Chicago market. Pritzker signed a gambling expansion bill that last year legalized sports betting on professional and selected college sports: more than $5 billion in wagers for the fiscal year ending in June, according to a report by the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.

The wagering has been going gangbusters since Governor J.B. People who never made sports bets before are doing it now.” “I didn’t set out for sports betting to become my niche,” says Ostrowski. Ostrowski’s Early Odds show on WSCR-AM 670 The Score is just a warm-up act - he talks sports wagering throughout the station’s weekday programs and crews a daily three-hour show on BetQL, a digital radio channel dedicated to sports gambling.

Every Saturday at 8 a.m., Joe Ostrowski is on the radio, chatting with oddsmakers, gaming gurus, and other sports experts seeking to connect with or cash in on Illinois’s recently legalized sports betting business.

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