Gov. JB Pritzker called to more than double the Illinois sports betting tax rate to 35% as part of his $52.7 billion Fiscal Year 2025 budget presented to the public Wednesday.

Though Pritzker did not reference sports betting at any point during his speech to state legislators, a look at the FY 2025 budget released in conjunction with his address showed a projected tax revenue increase of $200 million at the 35% rate compared to the current 15% from FY2024, which began last July 1. The state’s 15% tax rate does not include a 2% tax Cook County levies on revenue from wagers made within its limits.

If enacted, the higher tax would take effect July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Pritzker, who legalized sports betting in Illinois in 2019 as part of a massive gaming expansion bill, helped online sports betting take off in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 by repeatedly suspending the in-person registration provision of the Sports Wagering Act via Executive Order.

That helped quickly elevate Illinois into a top-three market nationally behind only New York and New Jersey. Illinois has posted eight monthly handles of $1 billion or more, including each of the final four months of 2023, and operators set a monthly sports betting revenue record with $128.4 million in December. The state collected $150.3 million in taxes from sports betting in 2023, up nearly $32 million from 2022 as the $1 billion in adjusted gross revenue was a 26.1% year-over-year increase.

The 35% state tax rate would rank third nationally in states where sports betting is not lottery-run. New York has a 51% tax on mobile betting revenue while Pennsylvania has a 36% tax on all operator revenue. All but 2% of that tax goes to Keystone State coffers.

Should Pritzker enact the increase, he would be the second governor to raise the state tax rate on sports betting in a year. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine successfully doubled his state’s tax rate to 20% effective last July, though some felt his decision was partly in response due to public irritation at the relentless barrage of advertising on television and radio.

Illinois can be considered a mature market with 11 retail sportsbooks and eight mobile operators. Circa Sports was the last to enter the state in late September, doing so for both retail and mobile wagering through a partnership with Full House Resorts in Waukegan. Of the six casino licenses created in the 2019 gaming expansion bill, Full House’s venue The Temporary is the only one with retail betting, though Hard Rock‘s Rockford location was approved for both mobile and retail wagering last July.

Pre-existing casinos in Metropolis and Quad Cities launched in-person betting late last year, and Hawthorne Race Course has been operating retail sports betting at its south suburban Chicago track and three off-track betting locations in the Chicagoland area as allowed by the 2019 bill.

In addition to sports betting licenses tethered to new casino licensees, Illinois still has three online-only licenses for prospective applicants — thought they come with an arguably prohibitive $20 million price tag. The Illinois Gaming Board has conducted two unsuccessful rounds of bidding for one of those licenses, with Betway most recently withdrawing from the process last October after the state agency had moved them forward as a potential finalist.