So Who REALLY Won March Madness? (and who lost?)

Hi this is Leslie Harris, and there’s good news for us here in Illinois, regarding March Madness. Unfortunately, there’s a little bit of bad news for us here in Aurora. I’ll start with the bad.

The Hollywood Casino in Aurora lost $6,795. Boo!

However, overall, Illinoisans bet $286.2 million on March Madness. The good news for our state is that the casinos generated almost 2.2 million dollars in Illinois tax revenue, and due to a recent change in the law, this was the first time that Illinoisans could legally wager on in-state college teams, as long as those bets were placed in person.

Now if you compare that to the Super Bowl, only $61 million was bet in Illinois on that game.

So as a state, we came out ahead. Hopefully you did too!