FanDuel Views Illinois Sports Betting Fees as Outlier

• Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson presented the company’s Q2 earnings
• Jackson reported FanDuel remains as the country’s top sports betting, iGaming operator
• FanDuel views Illinois as an outlier with its per-bet fee and does not envision fees in other states

Flutter Entertainment presented its 2025 second-quarter earning report, announcing a 16% year-over-year increase in revenue to nearly $4.2 billion.

CEO Peter Jackson reported FanDuel maintained its “clear position as the number one online operator in both sportsbook and iGaming,” but is disappointed in the decision from Illinois legislators to institute a per-bet fee for each licensed operator that does business in its state.

While FanDuel has instituted its own per-bet fee for customers to mitigate the state’s per-bet charge, Jackson said the company views Illinois as an outlier and does not expect to institute a similar charges for users in any other licensed state.

Illinois Fees to Cost FanDuel Millions

While Jackson did celebrate the company’s strong second quarter, he noted that net income reduced to $37 million from $297 million in Q2 2024. This was due to several factors, he said, including “increased noncash charges.”

FanDuel, like every other licensed sportsbook in Illinois, is currently required to pay a $0.25 transaction fee for its first 20 million bets taken in the state, which increases to $0.50 for every bet thereafter. The new charges went into effect on July 1, and FanDuel will undoubtedly cross the 20 million bet mark and face another fee increase.

According to the company’s earnings report, the fees are expected to cost FanDuel $35 million for the rest of 2025. To mitigate costs, FanDuel instituted its own $0.50 transaction fee for Illinois users, which will go into effect on Sept. 1.

The company expects its own fee will bring in $30 million, resulting in a net cost of $5 million on the year. This means FanDuel will take somewhere within the neighborhood of 60 million bets from Sept. 1 through the end of the year.

Jackson assuaged fears that FanDuel would look to include its per-bet transaction fee in other states where tax rates are too high. He said the company views Illinois very much as an outlier and does not expect it to happen anywhere else in the U.S.

“The Illinois surcharge, I mean we’re obviously very disappointed that they brought this tax into play in Illinois. We think it really will hurt the sort of recreational customers and ultimately risk fueling the black market, which is not good for integrity of sports, it’s not good for player protection, it’s certainly not good for collection of revenue for the state. So we don’t think it’s a good idea, but look, we’ve introduced this fee, which we think is the fairest way to deal with it. We think Illinois is an outlier. We don’t expect this to happen anywhere else. We’ll introduce the fee, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Still Evaluating Prediction Markets

Jackson said Flutter and FanDuel will continue to monitor the prediction market landscape in the U.S., which is “clearly a fast-moving space.” Flutter has decades of experience in a similar market, as it operates the world’s largest betting exchange, the Betfair Exchange.

Betting exchanges shares similar characteristics to the event contract markets, Jackson said, which can obviously be helpful as the company considers the landscape.

“But as you say, we’re evaluating the various regulatory developments and assessing the potential opportunities this may present for FanDuel. Naturally, we’ve got a lot of important stakeholders that we need to consider, and so we’re watching this space very closely,” he said.

FanDuel seems to share the same opinion on the prediction markets as DraftKings, as CEO Jason Robins yesterday said the company is firmly in “monitor mode” when it comes to the market.