Colorado lawmakers who’re involved about rising playing dependancy and betting scandals in skilled sports activities filed a invoice Wednesday that might prohibit sports activities betting apps from providing proposition bets on particular person athletes’ performances.
The bipartisan accountable gaming invoice — SB26-131 — would additionally try and decelerate playing habits by eliminating bank card utilization on sports activities betting apps, limiting the variety of deposits an individual could make into an account, and banning push notifications to gamblers’ cellphones from betting firms comparable to DraftKings and FanDuel.
“Frankly, the extra I appeared into i,t the extra I grew to become actually, actually alarmed by every thing that has occurred as a consequence of legalized sports activities betting and, for my part, putting only a few restrictions on it,” stated Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver, one of many invoice’s sponsors.
Ball, who’s sponsoring the invoice with Sen. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, stated the speedy progress of sports activities betting in Colorado is inflicting sudden issues — together with monetary money owed — throughout the state, and the legislature wants to maneuver to guard folks and the integrity {of professional} and collegiate sports activities. The invoice additionally has a Democratic and a Republican sponsor within the Home.
He cited research that present greater than half of 18-to-22-year-olds have engaged in some type of sports activities betting, and surveys of highschool college students that report that between 60% and 80% have gambled for cash throughout the earlier 12 months.
“We simply didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Ball stated of Colorado’s fast entry into legalized sports activities betting. “It’s simply exploded and it’s occurred very quick. I believe we are able to see the hurt that’s occurred very clearly.”
Colorado voters legalized sports activities betting in 2019 after the U.S. Supreme Courtroom overturned a regulation that beforehand had prohibited states from permitting it. It was one of many first states to launch on-line sports activities books in Could 2020, simply after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the nation, together with placing a pause on most sports activities. However the state’s residents rapidly took to sports activities betting apps because the world returned to regular.
The quantity Colorado bettors have wagered has steadily elevated annually, with folks betting greater than $6 billion on sports activities in 2025. On the identical time, the variety of folks calling the state’s drawback playing hotline has risen, too. The hotline averaged about 350 calls monthly in 2025, in accordance with the Drawback Playing Coalition of Colorado.
Joshua Ewing, government director of More healthy Colorado, an advocacy group that pushes for higher well being insurance policies within the state, stated new research are displaying a rising fee of dependancy amongst younger males and boys who gamble, and dependancy is inflicting monetary debt, strained relationships and emotional stress.
“It’s not about rolling again voter-approved betting. It’s about guardrails,” Ewing stated of the invoice. “The objective is sensible coverage, not prohibition.”
The sports activities betting trade is ready to push again on the laws.
“Colorado ought to seize this second to strengthen its state-regulated market — not hand it again to unlawful operators or chase bettors to federally regulated platforms,” stated Joe Maloney, president of the Sports activities Betting Alliance. “This proposal undermines the very client protections it claims to advance, rewarding actors who brazenly flout Colorado regulation and contribute nothing to the state’s communities by means of tax revenues.”
Maloney stated the alliance will proceed to interact elected leaders and regulators to bolster client protections and accountable gaming requirements that the trade already follows.
Proposition bets, or prop bets, are the moneymakers for sports activities betting apps as a result of they arrive with larger odds. In these bets, a gambler might wager on whether or not Denver Nuggets star Nicola Jokic will rating 30 or extra factors in a recreation or whether or not Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix will throw multiple landing.
Sports activities betting apps additionally permit gamblers to make a number of prop bets at one time to type parlays, which additional improve odds in favor of the sportsbooks, however are wildly standard with gamblers.
For instance, Bet365 on Wednesday provided a parlay wager referred to as “Joker x Jamal,” the place a gambler would win if the Nuggets’ Jokic and Jamal Murray each scored greater than 20 factors, and if Murray had greater than 10 assists and Jokic grabbed greater than 10 rebounds. A $10 wager might earn $100 if all 4 issues occurred within the Nuggets recreation in opposition to the Celtics.
Colorado already prohibits prop bets on faculty athletes, however Ball and the invoice’s different sponsors wish to prohibit all of those bets due to the temptation amongst athletes to take bribes to affect outcomes for gamblers.
The invoice additionally goals to curb the barrage of tv ads and cellphone notifications that individuals see throughout sporting occasions.
It might prohibit ads for sports activities betting apps between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. It might additionally ban the betting firms from sending push notifications or textual content messages to gamblers that solicit bets or deposits.
Income from Colorado’s sports activities betting market goes to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which awards grants to numerous initiatives across the state that defend and preserve lakes, streams and groundwater.
Ball didn’t anticipate that the invoice would influence these initiatives, saying sports activities playing continues to develop in Colorado yearly.
“Any influence that this has on income of the sports activities betting trade goes to be vastly outweighed by the expansion of the trade and the way far more tax cash is coming into Colorado yr over yr,” he stated.
That is the second invoice filed this month that addresses playing in Colorado. Final week, a gaggle of legislators filed a invoice that might block the Colorado Lottery Fee’s plans to open on-line lottery ticket gross sales.
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