Colorado sports betting is no exception to the rule that late spring and summer months are always the slowest in the industry.
The Centennial State showed a marked decline in May from the previous month but the year-over-year numbers revealed an impressive increase.
Summer Slump
April begins the spring and summer doldrums in the sports betting industry as the frenetic action of March Madness is only a faint echo while the NFL and college football are still months away. The lone bright spot is the NBA and NHL playoffs coupled with the return of the Boys of Summer at a baseball diamond near you.
And so it was that May showed a decided decrease in the betting handle and gross gaming revenue from April, not only in Colorado but just about everywhere else as well.
Colorado Department of Revenue report reveals Colorado sportsbooks reported gross gaming revenue (GGR) of $31.4 million, generating $2.2 million for the state’s tax coffers, which was a 10.5% drop from April’s $35.1 million GGR.
Trending Up
The April to May slowdown is expected but the bright side of the Colorado gaming industry is reflected in the year-over-year numbers. The sportsbooks combined for a $385.2 million handle which was an increase of 6.9% from last May but the first five months of 2023’sadjusted gross revenue dwarf the same five months last year by a whopping 127.7%!
We should also note that the trend we have seen played out in virtually every state except Nevada – where casinos and retail sportsbooks dot the landscape – is the same in Colorado as online sports betting towers above in-person betting.
Online sports betting delivered 99.3% of Colorado’s $31.4 million in gross gaming revenue versus a mere $216,433 produced through retail sportsbooks. Colorado’s hold, or win rate, averaged 8.2% which is below the industry standard of roughly 10%.
The excitement surrounding the Denver Nuggets playoff run generated plenty of NBA betting action in the state which was the bettors’ choice in Colorado, delivering $121.4 million in accepted wagers for the month which was a 21.7% increase over May 2022.
The Bettors Choice
May’s sport-by-sport breakdown in Colorado is as follows:
- Basketball: 32.2%
- Baseball: 23.8%
- Parlays: 16.9%
- Tennis: 7.4%
- Other: 5.7%
- Soccer: 4.7%
- Hockey-Ice: 3.8%
- Table Tennis: 2.4%
- Golf: 1.9%
- MMA: 0.7%
- Boxing: 0.3%
It just so happens that the director of the Colorado Division on Gaming, Dan Hartman, retired in May after 31 years working as a government servant. Hartman was responsible for coordinating the many different moving parts required to bring sports betting to the masses.
Hartman reflected on his tenure and the legacy he left, “We passed some great legislation last year for responsible gaming and kind of changed a lot of that up – the Legislature did. Really, getting that program and getting those grants out and some of those things led me to say, ‘Well, there is always something else in gaming. There is always a next thing, right?’”
“I think this was a good thing to kind of end on, but it also, I think, puts the division in a great place and puts sports betting and gaming in a good place here in Colorado,” Hartman said.
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