SPRINGFIELD, July 30 -- For the more than one million Illinoisans estimated to live with gambling disorder, last Friday carried a legal inflection point that advocates have sought for years, alongside a structural gap they say still needs to be closed.

Governor JB Pritzker signed Senate Bill 2749, placing gambling disorder formally inside Illinois's Substance Use Disorder Act for the first time, in the same legal framework as alcohol and drug addictions. The legislation took immediate effect. But the bill carries no new dedicated funding, and the most consequential barrier to treatment, Medicaid ineligibility, remains entirely unaddressed, leaving low-income patients who now qualify legally for state-supported help without the financial ...