How high can you go? Living in Chicago, we get taxed up the wazoo; living in Illinois, we get taxed up the wazoo. Chicago is the 6th highest taxed city in the US overall; we have the 2nd highest sales tax in the country. What’s the difference? I’m not going to do that much research. I do know my property taxes have shot through the roof too. Illinois is in the top 10 states when it comes to taxing its residents. I don’t typically get too concerned about the tax man; it is what it is. If I want to scour the country, the world, to live somewhere taxes don’t hurt as much, I have that option; it hasn’t got to that point. However, a few days ago, Illinois passed a bill that will levy another tax that will impact me directly. Illinois passed a tax on every sports wager made within the state. It’s $0.25 per bet for the first 20 million in revenue for the sportsbook (Draft Kings, FanDuel, etc), and $0.50 per bet after that. What does it all mean? It means Illinois is going for a quick money grab, which will punish the sportsbooks, who will most certainly push that down on us, the consumer. Thanks Illinois.
I’m a small bettor; this is not my livelihood. I consider my 1 unit to be $5. I know there are many more that like the parlays, and bet $1 on a single wager. So you’re going to tax my $5 wager, my buddy’s $1 parlay wager, the same as a $1,000 wager? I’m guessing the bigger percentage of bets across the board are on the low end. Will we even be able to bet those amounts? Will there be a minimum bet put on us? Time will tell. But to put a flat amount on each bet… that’s just stupid. IF you want to squeeze some more out of this industry, then use a percentage of each bet; that would make a whole lot more sense, at least to me, the small bettor.
When it comes to tax, I think things that are not required, a luxury, an extra… those are the things that should be taxed. Cigarettes, cigars, alcohol… OK; I get it. Groceries, gas, property tax… enough already. What category does the sports wager fall in? Probably the first; so then this is OK? Well, I guess it’s not unexpected. I’m guessing there will be something, but it shouldn’t be THIS. Furthermore, for that 1% that are trying to make a living doing this, well, then that would fall into that other category; I’m not there… yet… haha. For those folks, you’re taxing their livelihoods, and maybe, the way this bill is written, they won’t feel it as much as the small guys, so maybe this is OK after all?
What will the impact be at the end of the day? If they impose higher minimums, then I need to decide what I’m going to do. If they say $5 is the minimum, fine; if they say $10 is the minimum, maybe that would be OK… but can’t really do higher than that, at least not at this point. What if they stop giving bonus/promotions? I’m OK with that, since the majority of those are on parlays/same game parlays, and I don’t play those, no impact there. What if they raise the juice on each bet? Instead of -110 you have to lay -120 for example, or maybe the MLs and other odds become worse; that would kind of suck. You see, to make any money in this here thing, you’re shooting to be slightly better than 50%; all of that would cut into that positive percentage gain. We’ll wait and see. Until then, let me look at some more K props…
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