August figures for sports betting wagering and taxes were released and the whooping increase is compared to the month of July figures, according to a news release.

“The total handle for both retail and online sports betting wagers in Colorado in August” totaled $128,646,209, the release said. Total taxes collected from the Net Sports Betting Proceeds were $189,461.

The top three sports by total wagers, both retail and online, in August were:

• Basketball with $38,040,027
• Baseball with $22,789,309
• Ice hockey with $13,594,062

Basketball wagering took 29.6% of the total stake.

The National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and Major League baseball were all in play in August. The NBA and NHL in play because of COVID-19 rescheduling.

Twelve betting categories are part of the August monthly summary, which did not include “football.” The National Football League’s 2020 season kicked off in September.

In November of 2019 Colorado voters passed Proposition DD, paving the way for gamblers in the state to place legal bets. Legalized, regulated sports betting began on May 1.

Proposition DD sought to legalize sports gambling in Colorado and use taxes paid by casinos to fund the state water plan. There was no truly organized opposition to the measure, and no money funding any opposition. DD had the bipartisan support from public officials at all levels of government in the state.

And yet, as of this writing, DD was no sure thing to pass. It was a nail-biter all of election night, and at one point the yes and no sides were separated by just 84 out of more than 1.2 million votes. By Wednesday morning, it was on the way to a narrow victory, leading by about 13,000 votes.

One key thing to know about DD: It opened with, “Shall state taxes be increased …”

The proposed tax increase is on casinos, not taxpayers. But those likely were still very unwelcome opening words for many in a state electorate that has proved, time and again, to be extremely tax-averse. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, DD proponents conceded that the ballot language wasn’t on their side, but said they didn’t think it’d have a major effect on the end result. That may have been wishful thinking.

And speaking of language…

Proposition CC supporters felt they had language on their side. The measure would have resulted in fewer dollars in Coloradans’ pockets, but the first words were, “Without raising taxes” — an opening that deeply worried opponents.

But the measure lost, and it wasn’t close. It was Democrats’ latest attempt at chipping away at the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), which fiscal conservatives view as sacred and liberals tend to find immensely frustrating because of how it hampers government’s ability to raise new money in Colorado.

A sense of frustration at their latest funding loss filled the air of the pro-CC watch party: Back to the drawing board, yet again — with no consensus on what step to take next.

The Trump years may have cemented Colorado’s blue-state status — time will tell — but voters in the Centennial State continue to hold a hard line on anything that has even a whiff a new tax. In tandem with the statewide rejection of Prop CC on Tuesday, two local tax issues — a tax hike in Arapahoe County to pay for a new jail and a TABOR override in Jefferson County to plug an anticipated $16 million shortfall — were defeated.

Funding questions remain

Gov. Jared Polis says there’s a lesson to be learned in CC’s failure. The Democrat was in India on Election Day — make of that what you will — but issued a statement after the ballot measure’s loss ensured the state would not get to keep hundreds of millions to put toward education and roads.

“With the recent voter rejection of several different ways to fund our roads and reduce congestion,” the statement read, “it’s clear that voters want elected officials to do more with their existing tools and legal authority.”

Music to the GOP’s ears. As Amy Oliver Cooke of the libertarian Independence Institute said at Tuesday’s anti-CC watch party, “This is a mandate to the state legislature that they damn well better start prioritizing roads and education” without raising taxes.

If that were easy, someone would’ve done it already. The matter is certainly pressing: Colorado has some $9 billion worth of unfunded transportation projects.

House Speaker KC Becker, who is arguably the most powerful person in the Capitol, had this to say: “If this is not the solution, we’re going to keep working on solutions. … There has to be a solution, because it doesn’t exist in our general fund today.”

Coffman comeback?

Almost exactly one year after he was swept out of Congress, Mike Coffman may well be headed back to political office as Aurora’s mayor.

Many viewed Coffman’s defeat in the 6th Congressional District as inevitable. Aurora, which covers a giant swath of that district, is Colorado’s most diverse city and is increasingly blue. But Coffman, a Republican, survived for six terms in the district, taking down some serious challengers before finally falling to Jason Crow in 2018.

Coffman quickly bounced back, declaring he’d run for Aurora mayor in what was a nonpartisan race. As of late Tuesday night he held a comfortable lead over his closest competitor, Omar Montgomery, who’s president of the NAACP’s Aurora chapter.

Big night for union-backed school board candidates

Denver Public Schools had a solid “reform” board two election cycles ago — a majority that supported ideas such as closing underperforming schools and didn’t oppose charter schools. In the last election cycle, two union-aligned candidates got elected. After Tuesday night, at least four of the seven board members will be union-backed. (One race was still close as of this writing.)

Does this signal that there’s increasing skepticism of the education reform agenda among Democrats in Colorado? Other Tuesday results certainly seem to indicate so. In addition to Denver’s board-flipping, union-backed candidates had big nights in Adams County, Aurora and Douglas County.

One notable union-backed winner on Tuesday was Tay Anderson, a 21-year-old Denver Public Schools product who’ll now help direct the district. “I just became the YOUNGEST elected official in Colorado history!” after his win.

An the Fort Lupton City Council in 2015, but he was appointed. (Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said the Fort Lupton councilman was elected.)

Staff writers Meg Wingerter, Jon Murray and John Aguilar contributed to this story.

As Colorado heads into the final week of voting, the language of the two statewide ballot measures is getting even more scrutiny than usual.

Through CC, voters are being asked to let the state keep in perpetuity any tax revenues above the state spending cap, which the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) currently guarantees as refunds to taxpayers. It’s the measure that has caused a fracas over phrasing.

The other, Proposition DD, proposes to legalize and tax sports gambling, and has broad bipartisan support despite language that may give some voters pause.

TABOR doesn’t always result in statewide refunds — the last one came in 2015 — but there’s a lot of potential money at stake with CC: The governor’s office projects refunds at $1.7 billion over the next three years combined, while nonpartisan state economists project a sum closer to $550 million. Individual taxpayers could see refunds as low as $20 or as high as $248 through 2022, according to projections.

The fiscally conservative, anti-CC movement calls this a de facto tax increase, since the measure proposes to let the state hang onto money that would otherwise go back to taxpayers. The “pro” campaign, which includes the Democratic governor and House speaker, notes that CC would not raise anyone’s taxes, but rather would allow the state to hang onto revenues it has already collected.

One thing both sides agree on is that the language of CC could well decide the election.

“I think if CC passes, it can be attributed 100% to those first three misleading words,” said George Brauchler, the district attorney in the 18th Judicial District, and one of the main spokespeople opposing CC.

, CC asks, in all caps: “Without raising taxes and to better fund public schools, higher education, and roads, bridges, and transit, within a balanced budget, may the state keep and spend all the revenue it annually collects after June 30, 2019, but is not currently allowed to keep and spend under Colorado law, with an annual independent audit to show how the retained revenues are spent?”

Said Brauchler: “If my neighbors read ‘without raising taxes,’ and then they read the followup language about improving all the things that have broad bipartisan support, they, and everyone I know, would jump all over it and say, ‘How do we vote for this twice?'”

Polling consistently shows Colorado voters want better roads and schools, but those voters have also consistently rejected statewide ballot measures seeking more tax revenue to pay for those things.

Previous failed measures began, “Shall taxes be increased” — opening words that are required by TABOR, and that many believe spell doom for any statewide ballot measure.

Proposition DD opens with those words, but it is not expected to be a threat to passage because the increase would fall on casinos rather than citizens.

House Speaker KC Becker agrees with Brauchler that the language of CC is appealing. The Democrat-controlled state legislature voted last year on the language .

“Our language is accurate, and I think it’s compelling,” Becker said. “If that frustrates the opponents, well, we’re being totally honest.

“We aren’t increasing taxes. We aren’t creating a new tax or a new tax rate. We’re simply asking: Can we keep the revenue already being sent to us?”

Neither side of the CC debate will share internal polling numbers. Colorado Rising Action Executive Director Michael Fields, who is anti-CC, said only that he thinks it will be a “dead heat.” Curtis Hubbard, a consultant whose firm, OnSight Public Affairs, is working to help CC pass, says he expects a close election.

But the Republican firm Magellan Strategies released figures in August showing 54% of respondents said they would vote for Proposition CC, after a pollster read them the measure’s language.

In campaign time, August is a lifetime ago; the pro-CC campaign only launched a few weeks ago. But, Magellan’s David Flaherty said the poll’s findings speak to the appeal in CC’s phrasing.

“The ballot language is extremely well-written, everyone agrees. It’s brief, it’s easy to understand,” he said. “And it’s extremely well-written in order to create support.”

If Brauchler and Fields had their way, CC would include some or all of the following: “refund,” “permanently” and “Taxpayer Bill of Rights.”

And it certainly wouldn’t open the way it does.

“We could literally lose this because of those three words,” Fields said.

Becker responded: “They want to make things more confusing for voters. They want the language to be slanted in their direction. But our language is very clear on what the measure does, how the money gets spent. That was our responsibility and that’s what we’ve done.”

Sports betting isn’t legal in the Centennial State, but it could be by next year’s CU Buffs season opener if voters approve a statewide ballot question this November.

“I have the apps already downloaded on my phone, actually,” said Democratic House Majority Leader Alec Garnett, who co-sponsored the bill referring the question to voters.

Garnett isn’t gambling illegally, though he thinks the sports betting black market is alive and well in Colorado. He uses the payouts offered in the apps as guidance for his fantasy football team.

will ask Colorado voters if they want to give the 17 companies that own Colorado’s 33 casinos legal permission to apply for licenses to open a physical sportsbook at one of their casinos. It would also let them contract with private companies to operate an online sportsbook or cell phone app. Those casinos would pay a 10% tax on their net proceeds, and all that money would go to Colorado’s water plan.

The measure would put sports betting under the regulatory thumb of the Division of Gaming and give the agency until May 2020 to write rules about things like how to verify a person’s age before they bet online and get the system up and running.

Lawmakers did set a few rules, though.

Betting on the in-game performance of college players wouldn’t be allowed, and all bets on high school sports would be forbidden. Sanctioned e-sports (video game tournaments) would be OK, but no betting could happen on unsanctioned sports of any kind.

Before you cast your ballot, here’s what you need to know:

Why now

In May 2018, New Jersey convinced the U.S. Supreme Court that a federal law limiting sports betting to a handful of states was unconstitutional. It was called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, and states across the country rushed to create their own sportsbooks as soon as the 6-3 ruling came down. In total, 42 states have passed or are working toward legalization.

“It’s a way to legalize a practice that we know has been taking place in Colorado for over 50 years,” Garnett said.

The Denver Democrat and his Republican co-sponsor, House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, put the question to Colorado voters because any new tax needs their approval.

A $29 million tax

The ballot question starts with the potential tax increase, as all tax questions must in Colorado. In this case, the question is: “Shall state taxes be increased by twenty-nine million dollars annually?”

But it’s not a tax on Coloradans, it’s a 10% tax on casinos. Sportsbooks would take a cut of each bet placed in person or through a mobile app, and this tax would be on a percentage of those earnings.

“It’s unfortunate the ballot language has to say that,” Neville said, adding that the wording might confuse some voters.

Colorado’s casinos support the ballot initiative. The Colorado Gaming Association worked with Neville and Garnett during the session to find a workable level of taxation. The state tax would be about the same as the ones levied by New Jersey and Delaware, but it wouldn’t be the lowest in the country. That’s Nevada’s 6.75% tax.

“This is a number we can live with and still make a profit,” casino lobbyist Peggi O’Keefe told The Denver Post during the session.

The Colorado water plan

Where would the state’s proceeds go?

“In early 2014, Gov. (John) Hickenlooper was in a cabinet meeting looking around the table and saying, ‘We have a health care plan, transportation plan, but we don’t have a water plan,'” said Brian Jackson, a senior manager at the Environmental Defense Action Fund.

The result of that meeting, Jackson said, was “a great big document with a ton of great ideas in it covering all aspects of water.” The plan identified $20 billion worth of projects that would make sure Coloradans had access to clean drinking water, fishing, farming and river recreation as the state grows and the climate changes. Most of the projects had a funding source — but about $3 billion worth of them didn’t.

“There’s a funding gap for things that are really important like river health and watershed restorations and improvements to agricultural infrastructure,” Jackson said.

That’s where the nine-member Colorado Water Conservation Board comes into play. It gives out grants and loans to projects across the state for water storage, education and outreach, recreation and land-use projects. For example, the Homestake Project near Leadville upgraded equipment that diverts water for agricultural needs to make it more fish friendly.

Lauren Ris, assistant director of water for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said $29 million a year would be substantially more than the $7 million to $9 million the board usually gets.

Gambling addiction

A yes vote on Proposition DD would allow Coloradans to legally place bets from their phones — something they can’t do right now —  and effectively expand legalized gambling across the state.

Garnett and Neville said the reason for mobile betting is simple: It’s the way most black-market bets are placed now, and it’s what consumers will expect. Nearly 85% of all sports bets placed in New Jersey came from a mobile or online platform, according to an from the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement.

But gambling addiction experts aren’t sure the Centennial State is ready for the impact of making betting as easy as ordering on Amazon.

“Colorado has a really poorly funded problem gambling system,” National Council on Problem Gambling Executive Director Keith Whyte said. “They’re asking to expand on top of a very unstable foundation.”

The 2019 bill that set up the framework for sports betting allocated to the Office of Behavioral Health in the Department of Human Services for things like a crisis hotline and certified gambling addiction counselors. That’s less than half of what Whyte said he considers a minimum investment in gambling addiction services. He said states should invest at least 1% of the money they make off gambling into treatment.

The council ranked Colorado 37th in the nation for state investments into programs for treating problem gambling in 2016, but Whyte noted that the bottom 10 states didn’t invest anything at all.

Off-track betting and racetracks

One of the biggest debates on the sports betting bill was whether to let companies who operate outside of the three mountain towns where gambling is legal to apply for licenses.

“To not include the off-track betting facilities is just a slap in our face,” said OTB owner Dan Kelliher during a committee hearing at the Capitol. “It����ap very disrespectful, honestly, for being the small business owners that we are.”

His customers will be in his business, taking advantage of his amenities, while placing bets with some other company on their phones, Kelliher said.

Colorado voters, however, have consistently said they want gambling confined to the towns of Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek. An amendment proposed in 2014 to expand gambling to certain racetracks failed with a whopping 70 percent of voters against it.

Major-league sports

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell when the ruling came down from the Supreme Court, which included some recommendations for states wanting to set up their own sportsbooks.

One of those suggestions was requiring companies to use official league data for all in-game bets.

That recommendation was reiterated during testimony on the bill here in Colorado by Marquest Meeks, an attorney for the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Meeks, who said he was supported by “a coalition of all the professional teams here in Colorado,” told Garnett and Neville that the reason to use league data for sports betting is it’s the most accurate, reliable and consistent information about what’s happening in any given game.

That didn’t end up in the final bill.

Neville said he’s open to revisiting the idea, but he didn’t see a compelling reason to give major league sports a “total monopoly.”

The Denver Post asked the Rockies, Nuggets and Avalanche whether they support Proposition DD, but none of them responded. The Broncos deferred to the NFL statement on sports betting that asked states to use league data.

Here’s how to do all of that in time for Election Day — which is Nov. 5, by the way.

Q: How do I register to vote?

A: If you have a valid Colorado driver’s license or identification card, you can register online using the . If you want your ballot mailed to you, then you need to register by Oct. 28. People who register after the deadline will have to pick theirs up in person.

You can check whether you’re registered to vote on GoVoteColorado.com using the “find my registration” tool. If your record says you’re inactive, it means the county clerk sent you mail that was returned by the post office. You can become active by updating your information through the website, filling out a paper form or going to a polling location in person.

Also, don’t forget to update your address if you moved in the last year. Ballots go to with the Secretary of State’s Office.

Q: What if I don’t have a Colorado driver’s license or ID?

A: Folks who don’t have a Colorado ID can register and a few different types of identification.��The paper form can be turned in at your county clerk’s office, a polling center, public assistance offices, military recruitment offices or when applying for a Colorado driver’s license. Here’s a list of the instead.

Q: I’m a Colorado college student from out of state. Where do I register and vote?

A: Students can generally choose whether they vote back home or in their school’s state. Those who want to keep their home state registration can contact their local election office and arrange to have a ballot mailed to their Colorado address. If they want to vote in Colorado, they can register to vote here as long as they’re 18, a U.S. citizen and have lived in the Centennial State for at least 22 days.

Q: I’m a college student from Colorado going to school elsewhere. How do I register and vote?

A: You’ll want to update your mailing address rather than your home address with the Secretary of State’s Office. You can change your temporary address on the Secretary of State’s website in the “” area. Submit the voter application until the page confirms your application has been received and then update the information again when you return to Colorado.

Q: I didn’t get my ballot in the mail. What do I do?

A: You can request a ballot from your county clerk if you think there’s been a mistake, pick one up from that office or go vote in person at any polling center in your county. To find your closest polling center, visit . The answer is the same if you mess up the ballot that came in the mail and need a new one.

Q: Do I need a stamp for my mail-in ballot?

A: If you’re dropping it in the mailbox, the answer is yes. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office recommends you use two first-class stamps, just to be safe. However, no stamp is needed if you drop your ballot into one of the state’s ballot collection boxes.

Q: Is it too late to mail my ballot?

A: Oct. 28 is the last day the Secretary of State’s Office recommends mailing a ballot for the Nov. 5 election. Voters who miss the deadline can use one of their local drop boxes or turn their ballot in to their local clerk’s office by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Q: How do I learn about the issues and candidates on my ballot?

A: The Denver Post’s 2019 election coverage includes information on the two statewide issues — Proposition CC and Proposition DD — Denver Public school board races and Aurora mayor’s race.

“Black Hawk still had dirt roads. There was no parking, and there was a creek that ran alongside the road,” said Judy Laratta, who worked in a Central City casino on opening day and now serves as the city’s mayor pro tem. “It’s a booming place now. It’s like a little Las Vegas.”

Amendment 4 was sold to Coloradans as a way to save three gold rush communities from the brink of extinction while preserving their historic charm. The original law earmarked 25% of the taxes collected for historic preservation and restoration projects. But how Central City, Cripple Creek and especially Black Hawk preserved their histories is still hotly debated and likely explains, at least in part, why voters have overwhelmingly rejected requests to expand gambling across the Centennial State.

This November’s ballot measure to legalize sports betting is another matter, though. Proposition DD would let Colorado casinos take bets on baseball and football games and more starting in May 2020. It also would legalize limited online gambling through sports betting applications players download to their smartphones. What it wouldn’t do — and likely a big reason the measure has a chance — is expand in-person betting beyond the borders of Colorado’s three mountain towns.

“I think maybe a lot of people feel that gaming goes along with smoking and drinking. It’s an adult thing,” Laratta said. “The concentration of it in the old mining towns is a good place to keep it.”

Longtime Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli told The Denver Post when it comes to the proposition’s chances in November, but he’s still betting on the “yes” campaign convincing enough voters to put DD over the top. If passed, taxes raised from it would go toward the state’s water plan.

Ciruli has asked voters about several gambling ballot measures over the last two decades. The only successful campaign was in 2008, when Colorado voters gave the existing casino towns permission to raise bet limits, add games and stay open round-the-clock. It passed, he said, because it didn’t expand gambling to other parts of the state — giving it critical support from the gaming industry.

Colorado’s casinos fought expanding gambling to racetracks in 2014 in one of the most expensive ballot initiative fights in state history.

On the other hand, Ameristar Casino and CC Tollgate together have donated nearly $140,000 to the Yes on DD campaign, which launched its first television ads last week. An opposition campaign has yet to form.

“Once we passed gaming, what is very clear is the voters of Colorado do not want to expand it,” he said. “It is where it is, and we don’t want to see it anyplace else.”

Laratta agreed.

She is voting yes on Proposition DD, but she would have voted no if the measure had allowed racetracks and off-track betting locations to open sports books. She said she’d never support any measure that harmed the state’s casinos. They built the Central City Parkway, brought in two large apartment complexes and paid for the restoration of the city’s downtown.

“The city was on such a decline before gaming came in. It was pretty close to a ghost town,” Laratta said. “I think it brought a lot more people up. Now with all the hotels and everything that are coming into the area, it����ap really becoming a destination.”

But that success has come at a cost. Central City struggles to keep businesses such as restaurants open in its renovated downtown storefronts because of competition from the casinos. Two miles east, Black Hawk permitted the building of skyscrapers such as the 33-story Ameristar Hotel and allowed giant casinos to go up just outside the national historic district. City Council also voted 6-1 to relocate over the protests of historic preservationists to make room for a parking lot.

Former state Sen. Sally Hopper, who represented Black Hawk and drafted some of the gambling legislation, told The Denver Post a decade ago that Black Hawk “is probably the most-ruined town” in terms of historical preservation. She thought the city would put a few slot machines in every little business and use the proceeds to restore old buildings, but that’s not how it worked out.

Former Gov. Roy Romer crystallized that concern when he campaigned against legalized gambling. He told reporters in 1990, “Do I want to bring Atlantic City and Las Vegas to Denver? The answer is ‘no.’ ”

Voters have largely agreed with Romer in the decades since. A plan to create Highland City, the “Disney World of casinos,” somewhere east of Denver, failed to get off the ground in the early 1990s, and proposals to add gaming in cities such as Pueblo, Mantiou Springs and Trinidad were also rejected.

“Some were quite sympathetic,” Ciruli said. “But we’ve just never been able to get off those campuses.”

That’s why Proposition DD’s bipartisan legislative sponsors — House Majority Leader Alec Garnett and Minority Leader Patrick Neville  — ultimately rejected the requests of off-track betting owners to include them in the sports betting measure.

“For the people who were fearful of the negative impacts of sports gambling and for folks who were concerned this was going to spread to every corner of the state, we decided to keep the brick-and-mortar businesses in the gaming communities,” Garnett said.

Casinos in Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek combined to rake in a record $842.1 million in revenue in 2018, according to a new report from the American Gaming Association. The haul represented a 1.7 percent increase over the $828 million the industry banked in Colorado in 2017 and a nearly 13 percent increase over 2014.

The report, the Gaming Association’s 2019 edition of its annual “State of the States” roundup, found Colorado isn’t the only place where casinos are riding high. Twelve of 24 states with legalized commercial gambling saw record revenues last year, according to the research. In total, the industry brought in an all-time high of $41.7 billion in 2018, up 3.5 percent over 2017.

The Gaming Association pinpointed one factor in particular that contributed to gambling’s big year and it’s something that Colorado — for now at least — doesn’t have: sports betting.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal law that had prohibited gambling on sports in every state except for Nevada last May. Eight states made betting on sports legal in 2018. Revenue from that segment shot up 64 percent, hitting $430.2 million by the end of the year, according to the association’s research.

RELATED:

“More people than ever are experiencing the economic and social benefits of gaming in their communities, due in part to the expansion of legal sports betting across the country,” American Gaming Association president and CEO Bill Miller said.

Coloradans could soon join in the action. If they want to. This November, a statewide ballot question will ask voters if they want to tax sports gambling at 10 percent. Earlier this year, the Colorado General Assembly passed House Bill 1327, which set up a framework for allowing sports gambling in the mountain town casinos as well as through mobile apps. If approved by voters, sports book tax collections would begin in May 2020.

“Coloradans should have the option of betting on the Nuggets in the playoffs or the Avalanche in the Stanley Cup,” House Majority Leader Alex Garnett said in an interview last month. The Denver Democrat sponsored HB 1327.

Amid all the record cash taken from slot machines and scooped up off felt-topped tables, state governments made out OK, too, bringing in $9.7 billion in gambling taxes last year, the report says. That figure that does not include income taxes, sales taxes or property taxes. In Colorado, government coffers received $125.5 million from gambling.

Colorado casinos’ 2018 only stacked up to 11th place among the 24 states with commercial casino gambling. Nevada was No. 1 with more than $11.9 billion in revenue. The report did not factor in revenues from Colorado’s two , or other gambling establishments such as animal racetracks or off-track betting locations.

It’s clear Coloradans love their slots and video poker machines. Electronic gaming accounted for $732 million — 87 percent — of all gambling revenue in the state.

Black Hawk, home to most of the state’s casinos, brought in $623.2 million of the total, but neighboring Central City saw the largest revenue growth in 2018. It����ap $79 million in revenue was 9.9 percent more than what it brought in  2017.�� Cripple Creek had $139.9 million in revenue, which was a 3.8 percent increase from 2017.

They are two big questions, both of which would raise money for the state, and it’s entirely possible that more measures will find their way onto the ballot before fall.

“This is the Colorado we live in,” House Majority Leader Alec Garnett, D-Denver, told reporters. “Voters are conditioned to be asked these tough questions. They get mail-in ballots and they spend their time. We have one of the most deliberative electorates in the country, and so we’ll see.”

Not on the ballot: Gov. Jared Polis’ proposed vaping tax and a transportation bond measure the legislature passed in 2018 that’s now postponed until 2020.

Here’s more about the two issues that will be on the ballot:

Sports betting

House Bill 1327 creates the framework for the casinos in Colorado’s mountain towns to open a limited number of in-person sports books to bet on the outcome of games and individual plays as well as create mobile applications that can accept bets from anywhere in the state. The ballot question will ask voters in November whether they want to tax this new industry at 10 percent of its net proceeds starting in May 2020.

RELATED: Colorado lawmakers passed a bill asking to keep extra TABOR money. Here’s how it would work.

“Coloradans should have the option of betting on the Nuggets in the playoffs or the Avalanche in the Stanley Cup,” Garnett said. “I am confident voters will pass this measure.”

The bipartisan bill sailed through both chambers in the final weeks of session, but it did have a handful of opponents who thought that bets should be capped at $100, racetracks should be allowed to open sports books and Coloradans should vote on adding sports betting the way Amendment 50 added craps to casinos in 2008.

Read more about the sports betting bill by clicking here.��

TABOR refunds

The other question lawmakers decided to ask voters deals with the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

The amendment says governments have to return all tax dollars they collect above an amount set by a formula that gets calculated each year. Lawmakers are asking voters for permission to basically remove that cap on taxes collected by the state — a move known as “de-Brucing.”

Those taxpayer dollars, if voters let lawmakers keep them, would be split evenly among K-12 education, higher education and transportation, according to another bill lawmakers passed.

“There is a broad, bipartisan coalition behind this measure,” House Speaker KC Becker, D-Boulder, said. “Colorado’s state budget should be able to grow with the economy so we can invest in our future.”

Only one GOP lawmaker voted for it as the bill worked its way through both chambers. They tried unsuccessfully to change the ballot question from a one-time ask to an annual question.

“It should trouble all Coloradans that the majority would attempt to keep more taxpayer money instead of being fiscally responsible when year after year we have seen billion-dollar increases in the budget annually,” Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, said.

Estimates vary on how much money this ballot question would keep in state coffers. The economic forecast adopted by the lawmakers who write the state’s budget predicts no TABOR refunds for the next two fiscal years.

“This is not an answer to all of Colorado’s fiscal problems,” Becker said. “But it’s a strong step in making sure our fiscal policy supports our way of life.”

Read more about the TABOR ballot question by clicking here.��

Two lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday that would ask voters in November whether they want to legalize sports betting throughout the state and tax the new industry’s net proceeds at a rate of 10 percent starting in May 2020.

“My goal has always been to eliminate the black market,” House Majority Leader Alec Garnett, D-Denver, said.

His bill with House Minority Leader Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock, would allow the 17 companies that own Colorado’s 33 casinos to apply for something called a master license. The license would give them permission to open a physical sports book at one of their casinos and to contract with a company of their choosing to operate an online sports book or cell phone app.

One important thing the bill doesn’t do is let racetracks apply for master licenses.

“I wanted to maintain the intent of voters to keep gaming in those three mountain towns,” Garnett said.

In 2014, voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment to expand gambling to certain racetracks around the state. The campaign, which was heavily funded by the casinos, was one of the most expensive in Colorado’s history.

Garnett has “done a good job of bringing together all the stakeholder groups,” said Peggi O’Keefe, a lobbyist for Colorado’s casinos who worked with him on the legislation.

O’Keefe told The Denver Post that Colorado’s casinos support the bill.

It puts sports betting under the regulatory thumb of the Division of Gaming and gives the agency discretion to make rules about things like how to verify a person’s age before letting them bet through an online system.

O’Keefe previously suggested Colorado follow Nevada’s example and verify players in person at a casino before opening an account. The challenge with that method of verification is that Colorado’s casinos are clustered in one location, which means players in the four corners of the state would spend a day traveling to and from the mountains to open an account.

Other states that allow sports betting, like New Jersey, let players register through an online verification system.

New Jersey is actually the reason sports betting is even an option for Colorado. The state successfully challenged a federal law called the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act that limited betting on sports to a handful of states. The U.S. Supreme Court struck PAPSA down as unconstitutional in May 2018.

Nearly started working on legalizing sports betting following the ruling, and Colorado’s proposal mirrors a lot of what’s happening in places like Delaware and West Virginia.

Colorado’s ballot question would ask voters if the state could collect 10 percent of the net sports betting proceeds. That’s about what New Jersey and Delaware currently charge their casinos. Nevada, which levies a 6.75 percent tax on gross revenue from sports betting, is the lowest.

“It’s not a huge margin on sports betting,” O’Keefe said. “This is a number we can live with and still make a profit.”

How much of a profit the state will make off sports betting isn’t clear yet, but she estimated Colorado would take in about $7 million to $9 million annually.

“Nevada made $15 million when they had a monopoly,” she said.

Candidates during the 2018 election threw out estimates 10 times as high, but once the experts started crunching the numbers they quickly realized Colorado would never collect enough money from bets on the Broncos — even if they make it to the Super Bowl — to pay for Colorado’s transportation project backlog or even fully fund all-day kindergarten.

Garnett and Neville plan to put the sports betting revenue toward Colorado’s water plan if voters say yes in November.