Poker in Illinois: live poker rooms, online sites and the law

Where to play live poker in Illinois

Live poker is legal in Illinois in casinos licensed by the Illinois Gaming Board, and you must be 21 to play.

Area	Casino poker rooms (city)
Chicago area	Rivers Casino Des Plaines (Des Plaines) · Grand Victoria Casino (Elgin) · Hollywood Casino Aurora (Aurora) · Harrah's Joliet (Joliet)
Northern Illinois	Hard Rock Casino Rockford (Rockford)

The biggest rooms. According to DeucesCracked, Rivers Casino Des Plaines, next to O’Hare, is the busiest room in the state, with about 20 tables and No-Limit Hold’em from $1/$2 to $5/$10. Hollywood Casino Aurora and Grand Victoria in Elgin follow, and Hard Rock Rockford opened one of the smallest rooms, with six tables.

Near Chicago. Besides Des Plaines, Elgin, Aurora and Joliet are within an hour of downtown. Many Chicago players also cross into Indiana to Horseshoe Hammond, a short drive from the Loop.

Rooms open, close and change their schedules. Check with the casino before you go.

How online poker works in Illinois

No state-licensed site. Illinois has had legal online sports betting since 2020, but online poker and casino games are not licensed. In 2026, Representative Edgar González Jr. filed HB 4797, which would let Illinois casinos offer online casino games and poker and join the multi-state poker compact, and HB 4802 focused on poker alone. Neither passed.

What the law says about players. Under 720 ILCS 5/28-1, playing a game of chance or skill for money outside the places the law allows is gambling, a Class A misdemeanor. The same section treats running a gambling website as an offense. There is no record of an Illinois player being prosecuted for playing online poker at an international site. Federal law (UIGEA, 2006) restricts how banks process gambling payments and does not criminalize players.

What that means for you. International rooms that accept Illinois players are not licensed by the state, so Illinois consumer protections do not apply. Choose rooms with a long track record and keep only what you are playing with on the site. See the overview for the whole country in our US online poker guide.

Which partner rooms accept Illinois players

All four of our US-facing rooms with rakeback accept Illinois:

• Ignition Poker: the biggest US-facing room, with anonymous tables, a 150% Bitcoin bonus and 40% rakeback through our link.
• ACR Poker: the biggest guaranteed tournaments open to US players (the Venom, the OSS), a 100% bonus up to $2,000 and 35% rakeback.
• BetOnline Poker: on the Chico network, with a crypto-friendly cashier and 33% rakeback.
• CoinPoker: crypto-only, tables in USDT, HUDs allowed and 30% rakeback every week.

The ranked list at the top of this page is sorted by the rakeback you get through RakebackPokerWorld. To see how much comes back with your own monthly rake, use the rakeback calculator.

Deposits and withdrawals from Illinois

US banks often block card payments to gambling sites, so crypto is the most reliable way to move money in and out of international rooms:

1. Buy Bitcoin or USDT on an exchange that accepts Illinois residents.
2. Copy the deposit address from the room’s cashier and send it, checking the network the cashier indicates.
3. To cash out, request a crypto withdrawal and sell on the exchange. Crypto payouts usually arrive within hours.

Start with a small test amount. With USDT, your balance follows the dollar instead of moving with the Bitcoin price. The step by step is in how to deposit and withdraw Bitcoin at poker sites.

Taxes

Gambling winnings, live or online, are taxable income under federal law, and Illinois taxes them at its flat income tax rate. Keep records of your results and talk to a tax professional about your situation.