A Colorado bill looking to tighten guardrails on the sports betting industry is on its way to Gov. Jared Polis after passing on the last day of the session.
On Wednesday, the Colorado Senate approved a minor amendment attached to SB 131 by the House when it approved the bill over the weekend.
The bill changes Colorado sports betting rules to ban credit card funding of accounts and how many deposits a bettor can make in 24 hours.
SB 131 started the session with more restrictions, including a prop bet ban. Lawmakers, however, fine tuned the bill to strip out some of the proposed changes.
Colorado sports betting changes
Sen. Matt Ball’s bill changes a variety of Colorado sports betting rules:
- Bans credit card funding of accounts, which most of the large U.S. sportsbooks do on their own.
- Six deposits per 24-hour period of betting.
- No push notifications from sportsbooks to solicit bets or deposits.
- No advertisements where a majority of the audience is under the age of 21.
The bill also requires sportsbooks to submit data and for the state to publish a report with the information.
Additionally, it requires funding to the water fund to at least equal the previous year’s total from sports betting.
Keeping Colorado prop bets
Lawmakers removed the prop bet ban earlier in the session to help preserve tax revenue. The state is already facing a significant budget deficit.
Revenue from sports betting taxes goes to fund water projects in Colorado. Removing prop bets from the ecosystem would have cost the state millions of dollars and required money from the state’s general fund to replace any losses, per Colorado Public Radio.
A fiscal note on the bill suggests 25% of bets are prop bets. Still, Ball suggested the ban would have caused a loss of $1.6 million in revenue, or roughly 2.5% of projected tax revenue from sports betting. However, a similar bill in Louisiana last year suggested it would have cost the state a 39% decrease in tax revenue if prop bets were banned.
