NFL Betting In Illinois
With the Chicago Bears pulling down Caleb Williams with the #1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, NFL betting at Illinois online sportsbooks will be heavy this year.
If you’d like to get in on some of that NFL betting action, we can help.
Whether you want to place bets before the game, during the game with live betting, or even make some long term wagers on futures odds, we can walk you through it.
Below find the latest live NFL game lines straight from top Illinois online sportsbooks plus more NFL betting info to get you started.
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Live NFL odds at Illinois online sportsbooks
Check the feed below for live NFL point spreads, moneylines and totals odds direct from Illinois online sportsbooks. You can also find real-time NFL futures odds including Super Bowl 58 futures odds, NFL MVP odds and more. Click on any odds to go straight to the sportsbook, open an account, claim your bonus, and lock in your bets.
How to bet on the NFL in Illinois
In July 2019, the Illinois Legislature legalized sports betting. Since then, a number of legal online sportsbooks have gone live in the Prairie State. A few of those are:
DraftKings Sportsbook
If you’ve been to East St. Louis, you’re familiar with the Casino Queen. It is the facility partner with DraftKings Sportsbook Illinois, as the casino bears the DraftKings name as well. While you can place any and all NFL bets at the Casino Queen, you can do all your betting through DraftKings on your phone, tablet, or computer.
FanDuel Sportsbook
Par-A-Dice Casino in East Peoria is where you’ll find the FanDuel retail sportsbook. Sports bettors around the state will likely access FanDuel Illinois on their computers and phones. Just like DraftKings, it brings robust marketing power into the Prairie State.
BetMGM Sportsbook
BetMGM is another top operator in Illinois and across the country. While it doesn’t feature a retail sportsbook in Illinois, the BetMGM Illinois sportsbook app is all you need. The service is one of the best for offering bespoke parlays and gameday specials catered to your favorite teams.
BetRivers Sportsbook
Operating under the master license of Rivers Casino in Des Plaines, the BetRivers Illinois brand is the first legal brick-and-mortar and online sportsbook in Illinois. It has a strong presence in the Chicago market, so expect it to be a contender for market share for the long haul.
Caesars Sportsbook
This operator is one of the gaming giants in the legal sports betting industry in the US. Caesars’ facility partner is Grand Victoria Casino in Elgin, Caesars IL includes Illinois in its long list of jurisdictions where people can wager legally.
Is it legal to bet on the NFL in Illinois?
Yes. Illinois legalized sports betting in July 2019 and the first legal sportsbook launched in March 2020. As long as you’re at least 21 years or older and physically within Illinois state borders when you make your wager, it’s perfectly legal. And now that online registration is back for good, you can simply download a legal sports betting app and get started.
Being able to tell whether you’re using a legal sportsbook is relatively easy. You will see a disclaimer denoting registration with the Illinois Gaming Board on the app or website near the bottom of the page. If the sportsbook you’re using does not disclose that registration requirement, it’s an offshore sportsbook.
There aren’t any explicit regulatory or statutory restrictions on NFL wagers in Illinois, so sportsbooks are essentially free to take any NFL bets they feel comfortable accepting. Some types of bets are much more common than others, however.
How to bet on NFL games in Illinois
The odds that most bettors are most familiar with are also the lines you’ll see when you first open up the NFL section of your favorite sportsbook. It’s simple once you understand the jargon.
Moneyline
In these markets, you’ll see just two pieces of information: The teams playing in the game and a set of corresponding American odds. They will look like this:
| Indianapolis Colts +150 |
| Chicago Bears -280 |
In these types of markets, you’re simply betting on who you think will win the game. How many points the teams score and the winning team’s margin of victory are both completely irrelevant.
Tips for reading NFL moneyline odds:
- The home team is always on the bottom.
- The favorite will always have negative odds and the underdog will always have positive.
- The greater the difference between the odds, the more confident the sportsbook is that the favorite will win.
Point spread
This type of bet is often referred to as the point spread. In these markets, the sportsbook is sharing with you its prediction for the difference in the score between the losing and winning team in the game. The lines will look like this:
| Indianapolis Colts +9.5 -110 |
| Chicago Bears -9.5 -110 |
It’s common to see a half-point in football spreads. This is called a “hook,” and acts to prevent bets from ending in a “push” (neither the house nor you win the bet), as it’s impossible to score just half of a point in football.
The odds after the spread tell you what your payout will be if you win. It’s also common to see identical odds on both sides of these markets.
Your task in betting this market is deciding whether or not you agree with the sportsbook’s assessment. Essentially, this example says the sportsbook expects the Chicago Bears to win this game by at least 10 points.
If you agree, then you would bet Chicago -9.5. If the Bears win this game and by at least 10 points, you would win. If the Colts were to win the game by any margin or the Bears win but by less than the spread, you would lose.
If you think the book got it wrong, then you would bet Colts +9.5. If Indianapolis wins by any margin or Chicago fails to cover (wins by less than the spread), you would win.
Point total
In a similar fashion, an over/under bet is often referred to as a totals wager. It’s a market on the amount of points that both teams will cumulatively score in the game.
New bettors should note that it’s not how many points one team or other will score, but how many points both teams combined will account for in the game. The markets look like this:
| Over 56.5 -110 |
| Under 56.5 -110 |
The first number is how many points the sportsbook believes both teams will combine to score in the game. The hook (that half-point) prevents a push (neither the book nor you winning the bet). The last number is the payout if you win.
In these markets, you have to decide whether the sportsbook was too generous or not generous enough.
If you think the two teams will score more points than the book predicts, you’d bet the over. If you think the book’s total is too high, you’d bet the under. Which team wins the game or how many points the teams score separately mean nothing in these markets.
How do prop bets work in the NFL?
Proposition bets can be on a wide array of facets of an NFL game.
These can include player or team statistics, specific events within a game, and/or which team will be the first to achieve a particular part of the game. Some examples are:
- How many yards will Caleb Williams throw for? Over/Under 229.5
- Will the Bears score a defensive or special teams touchdown? Yes/No
- Will the first score of the game be a field goal? Yes/No
How does live betting work in the NFL?
This type of betting is also often referred to as in-game betting because the odds move as the game progresses. Typical examples of live bets for NFL games include:
- How many points a team will score in a certain quarter
- Which team will have more offensive yards in a half
- Which player will score the next touchdown for the Bears
As technology improves, the frequency, variety, and volume of these wagers will increase. At some point, you may be able to legally wager on the result of each play in an NFL game.
How does betting on NFL futures work?
The NFL futures market provides bettors the chance to stay involved with the game they love all year round. Futures are wagers on outcomes that won’t be known until later, sometimes months down the road.
These are bets that require a long-term perspective, but they can be quite lucrative when you make the right call. Futures odds become available during the NFL offseason.
The biggest markets will be unveiled right after the current year’s Super Bowl is in the books, while others will be sprinkled in between then and the start of training camp. Here are some of the most popular NFL futures bets you’ll have to choose from:
- Betting on the Super Bowl winner
- Division and conference winners
- Teams to make or miss playoffs
- Team regular-season win totals
- Individual awards — NFL MVP, Rookie of the Year, etc.
- Season-long player props — TDs, yards, sacks, etc.
Odds for NFL futures are typically listed in descending order with favorites up top, long-shots on the bottom and all other choices somewhere in the middle. The key is to find the selections you’re interested in at the best possible price.
For some bettors, that means placing bets soon after the odds are released and waiting until the end of the season. Other handicappers take a more active approach and remain constantly engaged with futures as they hunt for the best prices and opportunities.
The futures market also makes for a handy research tool as you get set to tackle another NFL season. Regular season win totals can give you a good overview of what to expect in the coming campaign, a tidbit that can be helpful for handicapping the early part of the season.
NFL schedule explained
For the fourth consecutive year, each NFL team will play three preseason games and 17 regular-season games. However, Chicago Bears fans got bonus football in 2024 with the Hall of Fame game featuring the Bears and the Texans. The NFL calendar usually runs from August through early January.
Regular-season games are typically played on Thursdays, Sundays and Mondays. Each team plays a game in all but one week for 18 weeks of the regular season. The off week is a bye week that occurs at some point during the season. In 2024, bye weeks run from week 5-15. The Bears’ bye week occurs in week seven.
The winners of the eight NFL divisions plus the three non-division winning teams in each conference with the best winning percentages qualify for the playoffs.
They play a single-elimination tournament culminating in the Super Bowl on the second Sunday in February each year.
How to stream or watch NFL games live
As NFL games are some of the most essential live sporting events for advertising purposes, many broadcast channels and streaming platforms carry them.
If you have a cable, live streaming or satellite subscription, you can check your channel guide for NFL games during the appropriate times. With each new season, the number of ways to watch NFL football increases, and it is truly a headache to try to account for all of them. Here are some of the main ways to watch the NFL in 2024:
- Thursday Night Football: You can watch “TNF” on Amazon Prime Video.
- Regular-season, Sunday day games: CBS and FOX own the rights to most of the regular-season Sunday daytime games. FOX has the rights to most of these games in which an NFC team is the home team, so that will be of most interest to Bears fans.
- Sunday Night Football: “Football Night in America” is an NBC product. You can watch Sunday Night Football on your NBC affiliate regardless of where you live. Alternatively, you can stream the game using the NBC app with your TV provider credentials.
- Monday Night Football: ESPN carries Monday Night Football. If you have an ESPN+ with a TV provider subscription, you can stream it using the ESPN app.
Playoff games and the Super Bowl
In the wild-card round, games are shown on NBC, Peacock, ABC, CBS, ESPN, and, for the first time, Amazon. All AFC divisional and conference championship round games are shown on CBS while all NFC divisional and conference championship round games are on FOX.
The coverage of the Super Bowl rotates each year between the aforementioned broadcasters. Super Bowl LIX on Feb. 9, 2025 will be shown on FOX. If you don’t pay for any streaming or TV service, you might be able to pull in games on broadcast ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC channels. In Illinois, those are:
ABC
- Champaign – WICD 15 (semi-satellite of WICS)
- Chicago – WLS-TV 7
- Harrisburg (Paducah, Kentucky) – WSIL-TV 3
- Moline (Davenport, IA) (Quad Cities) – WQAD-TV 8
- Peoria – WEEK-DT2 25.2
- Rockford – WTVO 17
- Springfield – WICS 20
CBS
- Champaign – WCIA 3
- Chicago – WBBM-TV 2
- Chicago – WMEU-CD 48.3 (Simulcast of WBBM-TV)
- Peoria – WMBD-TV 31
- Rock Island (Quad Cities) – WHBF-TV 4
- Rockford – WIFR-LD 23
- Springfield – WCIX 49.2 (simulcast of WCIA)
FOX
- Bloomington (Peoria) – WYZZ-TV 43
- Chicago – WFLD 32
- Quincy – WGEM-DT3 10.3
- Rockford – WQRF-TV 39
- Springfield – WRSP-TV 55
- Urbana (Champaign) – WCCU 27 (satellite of WRSP-TV)
NBC
- Chicago – WMAQ-TV 5
- Decatur (Springfield) – WAND 17
- Peoria – WEEK-TV 25
- Quincy – WGEM-TV 10
- Rockford – WREX 13
Which NFL team is most popular in Illinois?
Illinois is home to the Chicago Bears. The “Monsters of the Midway” have loyal and passionate fans across Illinois, and they also have quite the national following. The franchise also holds the distinction of being one of the league’s oldest teams, with roots that trace back to the early days of the NFL. Here are the Chicago Bears, by the numbers:
- Established: 1920
- Super Bowl Wins: One, Super Bowl XX in 1985
- Super Bowl Appearances: Two, last in 2006
- NFL Championships: Eight, last in 1963
- Conference Championships: Two, last in 2006
- Division Titles: 19, last in 2018
- Playoff Appearances: 26, last in 2018
- Retired Numbers: 14, most in NFL
- Hall-of-Famers: 30 primary players and nine who spent time with the Bears
Some of the greatest players in NFL history have suited up for the Bears, a list that includes names such as Walter Payton, Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus.
While the club has just one crown in the Super Bowl era, the Bears claimed nine NFL championships in the years preceding the AFL-NFL merger.
The Bears are investigating the possibility of a new stadium, as Soldier Field will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2024. The franchise purchased the land that housed racetrack Arlington Park, but now says that site is no longer a singular focus.
Tips for betting on the NFL
In many ways, betting on NFL games is just like betting on any other sporting event. It’s important to realize that the sportsbook has worked its “juice” (its interest in offering the market) into the odds. The operators base odds on the results of decades of data and proven algorithms.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to win, however. As the old saying goes, that’s why they play the games.
- Bet Within Your Limits: Before they place any wagers, responsible gamblers know exactly how much they will stake. You should only bet money you can easily afford to lose. You likely should seek help for compulsive gambling issues if you’re betting to pay bills or using your bill money to gamble.
- Don’t Bet the Bears Because You’re a Fan: While gambling should be just for fun and you should only bet money you can easily lose, winning is always more fun than losing. If you’re going to bet on the Bears to win, for example, you should because your handicapping says that’s the likely outcome. Often, emotional ties to an athlete and/or team can taint our evaluation of a sporting event. Some bettors who are successful at wagering have a hard-and-fast rule of never betting on games involving their favorites for this exact reason.
- Focus Your Research Efforts: There are tons of stats that look pretty and make for nice talking points. In the end, many of them don’t mean all that much. When approaching NFL handicapping, think through what impacts a game and its outcome. Included on that list are things such as teams that can move the ball or stop opponents, line play and turnovers.
- Know When to Pass: During the NFL regular season, there are up to 16 games on the weekly slate. While you can certainly bet on each of them if you’d like, it’s important to remember a simple pearl of wisdom: There’s no need to do so. If you target your efforts on a handful of games that you like best while passing on the rest, you may find the picture to be much clearer.
- Tune Out the Noise: As the most popular sport in the US, the NFL receives tons of coverage. While there is plenty of newsworthy information that’s important, there’s also a lot of noise. Train yourself to differentiate “hot takes” from the actual analysis. The latter can help in your handicapping process, while the former is often nothing more than talking points.
Sportsbooks don’t randomly put up odds with no logic behind them. The aim is to keep your money. If you want to take the book’s money, you’ll have to make informed decisions. Before placing a bet on a Bears game, you should, at minimum, answer the following questions for yourself:
- What do the results of the last 10 games between these two teams look like?
- How have these two teams performed in the appropriate venue recently?
- If the venue is open-air, what’s the weather going to be?
- Are there any injuries on either team?
- Is either team coming in a cold or hot streak?
NFL betting FAQ
That’s partially up to the operator, but none will let you bet on credit. Outside of that restriction, online sportsbooks will accept most of the following:
- Checking accounts
- Debit cards
- PayPal
- Prepaid debit cards
- Savings accounts
Of course, retail sportsbooks will accept cash. You can use many of the same payment methods to withdraw your winnings as well.
The simple answer is there is no simple answer to this question; it depends on a myriad factors. You’ve probably seen the stories of the people who staked $2 on an 11-leg parlay and won thousands of dollars.
It does happen, but the odds of successfully doing it are astronomical. That’s because with each leg you add, your risk doesn’t just increase, it multiplies. In many cases, you would be better off betting each leg as its own wager.
A good rule of thumb for considering a parlay is to gauge your potential payout if you bet the same amount on each prospective leg as its own bet. If parlaying them together doesn’t produce a substantially better potential payout than that, it’s not a wise move.
American odds tell you the profit if you win a bet.
There are two components — either a plus or minus sign and a three-digit number. If the odds start with a plus (like +150), that means the numbers that follow are what your profit would be if you bet $100.
If the odds start with a minus (like -110), that means the numbers that follow are how much you need to wager to make a $100 profit on your bet. Almost all the time at IL sportsbooks, these are the types of odds you will see.