Illinois bettors face double whammy: DraftKings joins FanDuel, imposes $0.50 per-bet fee
The other shoe has dropped for Illinois sports bettors. Following closely on the heels of rival FanDuel, DraftKings announced today it will also implement a $0.50 transaction fee on all sports wagers placed on its platform within the state. As a result, the customers of Illinois’ two largest sports betting providers have now been hit with the very same surcharge, a direct result of the state’s contentious new per-bet tax.
The state of Illinois enacted a novel tax on sports wagering last week, which has drawn widespread criticism.
From 1 July 2025, operators pay $0.25 in tax on each of their initial 20 million wagers within a fiscal year, with the tax later increasing to $0.50 for each wager after that. This is in addition to a progressive tax on Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) that can reach up to 40 percent for major operators like DraftKings and FanDuel.
DraftKings follows suit, citing tax burden
While announcing the surcharge, DraftKings mirrored the rationale provided earlier by FanDuel’s parent company, Flutter Entertainment, stating the new fee is a necessary measure to offset the increased operational costs imposed by the Illinois tax. While the press release stressed the company’s efforts to absorb previous tax hikes, the new per-transaction levy was presented as a burden too significant to bear without direct consumer impact.
This decision marks a major development, especially considering DraftKings had previously considered and then abandoned plans for a surcharge in high-tax states in 2024 due to strong public and customer backlash. The current alignment with FanDuel’s fee suggests a unified front from the industry’s largest players in response to what they deem an unsustainable tax environment.
FanDuel set the precedent
Just days prior, Flutter Entertainment announced that its FanDuel brand would initiate a $0.50 per-bet fee in Illinois, effective 1 September 2025. Flutter CEO Peter Jackson had expressed disappointment, stating the Illinois tax “will disproportionately impact lower wagering recreational customers while also punishing those operators who have invested the most to grow the online regulated market in the state.” Jackson also warned of the potential for bettors to migrate to unregulated offshore platforms that offer no consumer protections and contribute no tax revenue to the state. Flutter pledged to remove its fee if Illinois lawmakers reverse the per-bet tax.
Unified response, unified impact on bettors
With both DraftKings and FanDuel now set to impose identical $0.50 per-bet fees, Illinois bettors will find little refuge if they wish to use the state’s most popular platforms. The flat fee structure is particularly punitive for casual bettors placing smaller wagers. A $0.50 fee on a $1 bet effectively doubles the stake for the bettor, representing a 50 percent surcharge, while the same fee on a $100 bet is a mere 0.5 percent.
This development is likely to intensify concerns voiced by the Sports Betting Alliance (SBA), which represents major operators including DraftKings and FanDuel, and has labelled the Illinois tax “crippling” and “discriminatory.” The SBA and individual company executives have consistently warned that such tax policies risk driving customers, especially those who place small bets, towards the unregulated black market.
The decisions by both DraftKings and FanDuel to pass the cost of the new tax directly to consumers underscore the significant financial pressure operators are facing in Illinois. The state’s aggressive tax strategy, layering a per-transaction fee on top of a high AGR tax, is now directly translating into increased costs for bettors. The industry and market observers will be closely watching the impact on betting volumes, customer behaviour, and the overall health of the legal sports betting market in Illinois, a situation that could have ripple effects across other states considering similar tax measures.
