DENVER — Broncos preseason kicks off Friday evening, bringing back Colorado’s second most bet-on sport back.
The latest state Division of Gaming report found Coloradans wagered about $853.7 million on the sport. This year, online sports betting will look different due to a new law that went into effect Aug. 12.
Watch Alex Dowd's story on how the law will change sports betting in the state in the video below:
The new law, SB26-131, changes how online sports books advertise and share data and how bettors are able to use those platforms. It also stops online sports books from directing advertising towards minors and bans push notifications, and enables the Colorado Division of Gaming to track data from individual wagers. They’re currently just collecting data on each sport.
Bettors, on the other hand, can no longer bet using credit cards and are limiting bettors to six deposits per day.
Executive Director of the Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado Jamie Glick told Denver7 the credit card aspect will be the most consequential for problem gamblers.
“It is one thing to gamble your savings away, but if you gamble your savings away and then you take out credit cards to gamble with, the disruption just looks different,” he said. “If you have $50,000 in credit card debt, $100,000 in credit card debt, which we see, that takes a long time to pay off, so I think that was a really important step.”
Out of the 12 online sports books operating in Colorado, over half already banned credit card deposits.
A representative from the Sports Betting Alliance — which represents platforms like DraftKings and FanDuel — told Denver7 that before the law, they also allowed users to set limits in app and opt out of notifications.
Their concern is that this law would lead more people to the illegal, unregulated market, saying in a statement, “member companies of the Sports Betting Alliance provide state of the art protections for users in the legal market. Increased illegal market participation means less protections for users in Colorado."
Addiction counselors like Glick see it differently.
While gambling has existed long before it became legal in Colorado in 2020, the Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado has seen their help calls double in the past five years.
“People were betting on sports before the legalization, but they're doing it through bookies, doing it through black market sites, but now it's public, it's open,” he said. “It's easily accessible. We've seen a steady increase of people looking for help since 2020.”
They’ve launched a campaign called “Fan Mode,” which encourages fans to remember why they loved sports and to participate without the betting aspect.
This new law doesn’t apply to prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi. Those are federally regulated by Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
So while users can place money on sports outcomes, they aren’t subject to the same rules as official online sports books.
A Kalshi representative said prediction markets are more like the stock exchange, telling Denver7 in a statement:
“A sportsbook is a bookie, which means it is a counterparty to bets placed by its customers and it sets the odds. Like the "house" at a casino, the bookie wins when the bettor loses and vice-versa. That gives a sportsbook an incentive to stack the odds against the bettor and to skew the odds by selling wagers with embedded margins that make customer losses more likely.
Prediction markets, by contrast, are financial exchanges. They act as intermediaries and do not favor one side of the trade; traders set the prices from everything from sports to elections to gold futures. The market - not the exchange - sets the prices.”
A Colorado Division of Gaming is monitoring active litigation against prediction markets across the country.
If you or someone you know may struggle with problem gambling, text or call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit cogamblerhelp.org.
