PlayIllinois is your local resource for information about all legal Illinois gambling and sports betting. Below, you can find out who we are, why we do what we do, and most importantly, how you can reach out to us with your questions.
Our Mission
Contact Us
Catena Media US, Inc.: 8565 S. Eastern Avenue, Ste 150, Las Vegas, NV 89123PlayIllinois Team
Managing Editor: Tyler Andrews
Tyler is the Managing Editor for PlayGeorgia.com, covering sports, sports law, and gambling for the Peach State. He has also covered similar topics for NCSharp, PlayCA, PlayFlorida, PlayOhio, and PlayTexas.
Read more from Tyler here.
Contributor: T.J. McBride
T.J. is a writer and reporter based in Denver, Colo. who covers the Denver Nuggets. He contributes regularly to PlayIllinois as well as other news websites owned by Catena Media. His byline can be found across many websites such as ESPN, FiveThirtyEight, Bleacher Report, and others.
Read more from T.J. here.
Contributor: Cole Rush
Cole Rush writes words. A lot of them. Most of those words can be found in gambling publications such as PlayIllinois, iGaming Business, Gaming Today, Bonus.com, MidwestSharp.com, ICE 365, and IGB North America. Cole also covers pop culture and books for Tor.com and TheQuillToLive.com. Cole has more than eight years of experience writing about gambling and entertainment.
Read more from Cole here.
Contributor: Darren Cooper
Darren Cooper was born and raised in Southern Louisiana, just a short pirogue ride away from New Orleans. He started his journalism career at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and has been a writer and columnist in New Jersey since 1998. He’s won 14 statewide press awards and earned his first Associated Press Sports Editors Top 10 award in 2022.
Read more from Darren here.
Former News Content Manager: Matthew Bain
Matthew Bain is currently the Content Manager at Catena Media’s national online lottery site, PlayiLottery. He used to be the News Content Manager at Catena Media, overseeing news content for the network’s highest-priority regional sites, including PlayIllinois.
Prior to joining Catena Media in 2022, Matthew won 10 statewide and national journalism awards during six years as a reporter and editor for the USA Today Network.
Read more about Matthew here.
More About PlayIllinois
PlayIllinois is the Illinois-centric site for a series of Play-branded news and informational sites available throughout the country. We cover all aspects of Illinois gambling, including the Chicago casino project, the burgeoning sports betting industry, casinos, lottery and VGTs.
We are not directly affiliated with any specific casino, sportsbook, mobile sports betting app or gaming website. We are an independently owned and operated commercial organization.
Advertising Disclosure
Our funding comes via advertising relationships with several legal online gaming operators. In some cases, when you visit a site, including online sportsbooks, casino sites, poker sites and daily fantasy sports sites, we may receive financial compensation from the casino or poker site. We may also sell advertising to various partners.
Our policy regarding advertisers is simple:
- Advertisers do not have a say over the content on PlayIllinois.com.
- Our goal is to provide credible, objective information about legal online gaming options in Indiana, specifically and more generally throughout the US. We believe that this goal naturally produces the best information for both customers and operators, therefore for us.
- We mark all paid advertisements or advertisements that appear in a format (such as banner ads) that are widely understood to be advertisements.