Illinois is changing state law to ensure that treating and preventing gambling disorders will be included in its approach to substance abuse and addiction.
Among numerous bills signed by Gov. JB Pritzker on July 24, Senate Bill 2749 alters the state Substance Use Disorder Act effective immediately to better align Illinois’ approach to gambling disorders with its broader public health strategy.
“Substance use and gambling disorders, as defined in this Act, constitute a serious public health problem,” reads an introduction to the bill.
“It is imperative that a comprehensive and coordinated strategy be developed … Through local prevention, early intervention, treatment, and other recovery support services, this strategy should empower those struggling with substance use and gambling disorders (and, when appropriate, the families of those persons) to lead healthy lives.”
The bill adds that gambling disorder “shares similarities with drug abuse, as both activate reward systems in the brain and produce comparable behavioral symptoms that disrupts personal, family, or vocational pursuits.”
Illinois places focus on gambling disorder education
The bill requires the state Department of Human Services to undertake numerous measures that include a focus on gambling supports, including:
- Coordinating a statewide strategy for prevention, early intervention, treatment, and recovery support of substance use and gambling disorders.
- Developing a program that utilizes cooperation and coordination between federal and state governmental agencies and local service providers
- Working with the State Board of Education to establish gambling disorder prevention programs, curricula, and instructional resources for use in schools statewide
- Developing regulations and best practice guidelines that can be utilized by publicly and privately funded programs that provide prevention, early intervention, treatment, and other recovery support services
- Expanding the state’s network of gambling supports and services through measures such as customer screening, treatment, crisis intervention and suicide prevention, training programs and public awareness campaigns
In addition, the Department of Human Services will develop and finalize a statement about how to get assistance with a gambling disorder. Every licensed gambling operator and establishment owner in Illinois, including online sportsbooks, will be required to include the finalized statement on their website or mobile app.
Illinois concerned with more than state-regulated gambling
Notably, the bill’s changes to state law define gambling as “the activity of betting or wagering on uncertain outcomes, including, but not limited to, betting or wagering activity regulated by the Illinois Gaming Board.”
In doing so, the Substance Use Disorder Act appears to acknowledge that Illinois residents have other gambling options available to them outside of state-regulated sportsbooks and in-person casinos.
As well as offshore sportsbooks and casinos, and other unlicensed gambling sites that Illinois authorities have been fighting for years, numerous prediction market platforms offer access to trading on sports and other events within the state.
The Illinois Gaming Board (IGB) has sent numerous cease-and-desist orders to platforms it said have been offering gambling without being approved for a license to do so, and is embroiled in litigation with Kalshi and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over event contracts.
Illinois ever-evolving gambling market
The change to state law to put gambling disorders on the same keel as substance abuse disorders comes amid several approved and attempted changes to Illinois’ gaming market.
After Pritzker last year approved a new per-wager tax on licensed sportsbooks, the final version of this year’s state budget included a similar per-trade transaction tax on prediction markets related to sports. Kalshi sued Illinois in federal court in late June, just days before the budget’s measures were due to come into effect on July 1.
The budget also accepted daily fantasy sports (DFS) as a form of regulated real-money gambling, among other items.
One thing Illinois did not do this year is legalize online casino gaming, although once again it tried. Legislators introduced a pair of bills in February that would authorize iGaming, although the issue did not make any headway in either chamber beyond being referred to committees for potential discussion.
