Colorado is poised to become the first state to limit the number of daily deposits a gambler can make in a sports-betting app after lawmakers sent a bill aimed at curbing addiction to Gov. Jared Polis.
would also ban push notifications that solicit bets or deposits on gambling apps — another first-in-the-nation measure. And it would ban credit card deposits on gambling apps in an attempt to keep people from placing bets with money they do not have.
Five of the 13 online sportsbooks doing business in Colorado already have credit card bans in place.
The Senate agreed to House amendments on the bill on Wednesday, the final day of the session, clearing the measure to go to the governor. , a Denver Democrat who is one of the bipartisan bill’s sponsors, said the measure would be effective in curbing gambling addiction even though its strongest provision, a ban on proposition bets, was stripped after facing opposition from the gambling industry.Research shows that frequent deposits into online gambling accounts are an indicator of problem gambling, Ball said, and those who repeatedly reload accounts are more likely to be high-risk gamblers who experience bigger losses.
“As a result, deposit limits are widely recognized as an effective harm-reduction tool designed to introduce friction, slow loss-chasing behavior and reduce extreme outcomes, particularly among high-intensity users,” he said.
The bill would limit gamblers to making up to six deposits per day, with no limit on the value of each.
Ball also said repeated push notifications on cell phones serve as cues that trigger gamblers to keep playing, even when they’ve already faced significant losses — and those pushes drive impulsive behavior in bettors.
The legislature faced heavy opposition from the gambling industry, which argued that betting limits and advertising restrictions would be bad for business. The industry fought hard to retain its proposition bets, which allow gamblers to wager on individual athletes’ performances and to combine those performances into bigger packages, known as parlays.
Those bets are popular with gamblers because they produce bigger payouts for winners. The gambling companies like them because the odds are higher and they produce more revenue.
Brianne Doura-Schawohl, the director of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, said the bill created “revolutionary consumer protections,” and she urged Polis to sign it.
Polis’s spokesman, Eric Maruyama, said the governor will review the final version of the bill.
