Fairmount Park was awarded a Master Sports Wagering License and was given “preliminary suitable” status to add casino games on Thursday at an Illinois Gaming Board special meeting. The track has plans plans to expand by adding a racino.
Located near the Illinois-Missouri border and close to the St. Louis metropolitan area, Fairmount Park joins Hawthorne Race Course as an organizational licensee permitted to conduct sports betting and preliminary suitable status to expand and add casino games. The horse racing tracks were permitted to apply for casino and sports betting licenses as part of the gaming expansion bill Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law in June 2019.
It is the ninth Master Sports Wagering license issued by the Illinois Gaming Board, all of which have been awarded since June. Fairmount Park applied for the license doing business as FanDuel Sportsbook and Horse Racing, which will make FanDuel the first sportsbook in Illinois to operate at multiple retail venues.
FanDuel was in talks with Fairmount Park as far back as February to enter Illinois as a workaround to the 18-month waiting period from the issuance of the first retail sports betting license to when the IGB can accept an online-only application. It launched mobile betting Aug. 28 via Par-A-Dice Casino, and commenced retail wagering Sept. 10.