Illinois Governor Pritzker Axes Remote Mobile Betting Signup

• Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed an executive order to stop remote mobile betting signups.
• Big named sportsbooks are offering incentives for bettors to go signup in person.

CHICAGO – Just ahead of the March Madness National Championship game, sports bettors in Illinois got some eye-opening news. News that Governor, J.B. Pritzker has signed an executive order to stop all remote signups for mobile sports betting apps in the state.

Now, in order for bettors to sign up for one of these mobile sports betting apps, they must physically travel to the sportsbook location and sign up in person.

The decision came being that the state has been ramping up the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines.

“Illinois is currently in phase four with vaccination rates rapidly increasing and casinos around the state have reopened with safety guidelines in place, so the suspension of in-person sports betting registration requirements is no longer needed,” said a spokesperson from the Governor’s office.

Now that big named Illinois sportsbooks have to focus on in-person signups now, they have been advertising different incentives for bettors to go in and sign up. Sportsbooks such as Barstool Sports, BetRivers and PointsBet have all been advertising different promotions to those bettors in Illinois to get them in person to sign up.

The one thing to keep in mind though is that if bettors have already signed up remotely for these mobile betting apps, they do not need to worry as their accounts will not be affected at all.

For those bettors that do not plan on making the trip to any of the in-person locations to sign up, that is fine as well as there are other legal sports betting sites such as Bovada, BetOnline and MyBookie that all have remote signup available.

News tags: Barstool Sportsbook | BetRivers | COVID-19 | Illinois | J.B. Pritzker | mobile | PointsBet