The bipartisan bill — — was introduced earlier this year with the intention of slowing gambling habits after a group of politicians heard warnings about increasing gambling addiction since Colorado legalized online sports betting in May 2020.

But mounting pressure from the gambling industry and a state budget crunch led the bill’s sponsors to remove the section that would have banned bets on individual athletes’ performances, which are the most popular wagers for gamblers because they come with higher payouts and are a big moneymaker for the sportsbooks because they come with higher odds.

Sen. Matt Ball, a Denver Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said prop bets and the ability to bet on every pitch in a baseball game or every pass in a football game are like having “slot machines in your pocket.”

“That perpetual availability is something that is very addictive,” he said.

Ball agreed the bill had a better chance of passing this session if the prop bet prohibition was removed, but he vowed to revive the legislative debate again. He wants to have a more holistic conversation about prop bets and parlays, and how they trigger compulsive gambling habits.

In prop bets, a gambler could bet on how many points Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray might score in a game or how many touchdown passes Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix might throw. Gamblers can place these bets before a game starts, and they can bet mid-game on things such as whether a Major League Baseball pitcher will throw a ball or a strike.

Sports-betting apps also allow gamblers to combine multiple prop bets to form parlays, which further increase odds in favor of the sportsbooks, but are wildly popular with gamblers.

Colorado already bans prop bets on college athletes’ performances.

Public health advocates believe prop bets lead to more addictive behavior, especially since gamblers can place the bets mid-game. Ball also worried that prop bets could impact the integrity of games because the high stakes put pressure on athletes and lead to harassment from gamblers when they fail.

The prop bet prohibition was removed, in part, because of the fiscal impact, Ball said. Tax revenue from sports gambling pays for water projects across the state.

The elimination of prop bets would decrease revenue by more than $2 million per year, according to the produced by the Legislative Council Staff. With the prop bet prohibition removed, the predicted revenue loss from the bill is an estimated $800,000.

Ball and public health advocates believe the bill still can help curb addiction.

The bill would also attempt to slow gambling habits by eliminating credit card usage on sports-betting apps, limiting the number of deposits a person can make into an account, curtailing television commercials and banning push notifications to cellphones from betting companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel.

It would also require sportsbooks to provide data to the state in an attempt to determine certain metrics, such as gambler demographics.

Joshua Ewing, executive director of , an advocacy group that pushes for better health policies in the state, said the remaining sections of the bill still could have an impact on gambling addiction.

“Those are all really important pieces that get at those problem gaming aspects,” Ewing said. “We wanted to be as strong as possible, but we still think the bill would be one of the strongest in the nation.”

The bill is expected to be debated on the Senate floor on Monday.

Two other bills addressing gambling are pending before the legislature.

would have barred the from developing an internet lottery scratch-off game, but that provision was removed. Now the bill only prohibits lottery players from buying tickets with credit cards. Critics, including Colorado’s casino operators, say the Lottery’s online scratch-off games will become online casinos rather than traditional lottery games.

would restructure the bodies that regulate gambling in Colorado. It would repeal the , which regulates horse racing, and put its duties under the supervision of the Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission, which oversees casinos and sportsbooks.

The gaming control commission’s size would be expanded under the bill.

DO YOU HAVE A GAMBLING PROBLEM?

The Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado helps people who are addicted to gambling. Call 303-955-4682 or visit��cogamblerhelp.org��for help.

The Denver Post reports on the impacts of gambling in Colorado and wants to hear your stories about betting on sports. Please contact reporter Noelle Phillips at nphillips@denverpost.com if you are willing to talk about your experience.

Our son, whose name we’ve omitted because of the stigma around this addiction, discovered gambling at age 11, although we didn’t recognize it then. We thought he was playing a computer game, but his addiction to the game was only the start.

By 12, a relative had introduced him to online poker. By 14, he was secretly buying Visa gift cards with allowance money to fund his habit. By 16, he’d lost over $1,000—and we were just beginning to understand what we were up against. He dropped out of college to play poker professionally. From there, the addiction only spread: blackjack, horse racing, online casinos. And once Colorado legalized sports betting in 2019 and it landed on every smartphone, there was no escape.

A 2025 report in the International Gambling Studies journal shows gambling before age 18 was associated with a more than 80% higher risk of problem gambling later in life. And unfortunately for us, that was exactly what the professional gambling industry knew would happen. By the time we understood what was happening, there was no going back.

Now in his early 30s, our son has struggled with depression and anxiety, bad credit and crippling debt, and ruined relationships. He’s been homeless at different points. Consider yourself lucky if you haven’t seen your child, the person you love most on this earth, endure these kinds of struggles.

But sadly, too many people have lived our story. At least 8 million people nationwide struggle with a gambling addiction. Among individuals with a gambling disorder, 1 in 2 will consider suicide, and 1 in 5 will attempt it. In Colorado, calls for help to the gambling addiction hotline have jumped by nearly 50% in the first year after sports betting was legalized.

We’re proud that our son is attending therapy and Gamblers Anonymous. But the industry knows he has gambled in the past and is not making it easy for him to quit. Online sports betting ads stalk him constantly. He gets frequent texts, promo codes and special offers to lure him back on the platforms. He can’t watch a March Madness game or listen to sports radio without hearing an advertisement aimed at reeling him back in. He’s trying to recover from an addiction the industry won’t let him forget.

We agree adults should be free to gamble responsibly. But freedom isn’t the question here. The question is whether billion-dollar industries should be free to use every psychological trick available to encourage and exploit addiction. Colorado has already decided that “legal” activity doesn’t mean unregulated for other industries: we legalized marijuana but banned child-targeted promotion. We allow alcohol but prohibit sales to intoxicated patrons. We prohibit liquor stores from giving away free drinks to keep you buying. Adults can purchase tobacco, but Marlboro can’t advertise during the Super Bowl.

Sports betting is the only vice where we’ve let the industry write its own rules. That����ap why we’re strongly supportive of , the Online Problem Sports Gambling Act. SB-131 creates reasonable guardrails against the industry’s push of impulsive online sports betting and expands protections against underage gambling, helping prevent the kind of harm our family has experienced.

It does this by applying a common-sense framework: limiting deposits to prevent compulsive betting spirals; prohibiting “free bet” bonuses designed to hook new users; banning push notifications and texts that interrupt your day; restricting ads during live sports when kids are watching; and restricting credit card use that lets people bet beyond their means.

These new rules will help curb the predatory practices that addict young people to problem gambling and make it almost impossible for people like our son to stop.

It����ap only been five years since sports betting was legalized, and we’ve already seen statistics and stories that reflect the concerning toll it����ap taken on the health of individuals in our state, particularly young men. If we can’t come together now to set reasonable guardrails on this industry, we’re looking at a crisis that����ap only just beginning.

All we ever wanted was to protect our child from harm. SB 131 won’t give us back the last 20 years, but it could spare another family the next 20. We urge Colorado lawmakers to do the right thing and pass this bill.

Carla and Joe Gennaro are parents of someone with a gambling addiction and residents of Lone Tree.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

The forecasts, prepared by the legislative and executive branches, are set for release Thursday afternoon. They give lawmakers a target number for setting the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

The releases also mark the start of the final dash for the Joint Budget Committee to finish its work on the budget before the spending bills are brought before the full legislature — and they signal how optimistic, or pessimistic, the state should be about the economy.

Colorado lawmakers passed a housing bill. They’re weighing restrictions on ICE. Now here comes the budget.

The formal budget approval process is set to begin in late March, though it may be delayed. Once it starts, it will set off a sprint of lawmaking since legislators will finally know exactly how little cash they have to work with. Earlier estimates have put the projected budget gap at nearly $1 billion.

Here’s what else is happening this week. As always, the legislature’s schedule is subject to change.

Monday

The House began its week by passing , a measure that would require large social media companies to comply with law enforcement search warrants more quickly. The Senate, which already approved the bill, will need to consider some House amendments before the bill goes to Gov. Jared Polis.��

The chamber also passed , which aims to increase vaccine availability in Colorado. That likewise goes back to the Senate for consideration of amendments before going to Polis.

Tuesday

The full Senate is set to consider , a measure that would restrict the sale and use of certain rat poisons in Colorado, for an informal vote. The measure is an early contender for the most-lobbied measure in the Capitol this year, with lobbyists registering hundreds of positions on it. Sponsors rewrote much of the bill as they worked it through an earlier committee. The Senate will still need to conduct a formal vote before sending the proposal to the House.

The full House, meanwhile, is set to debate . That measure would prohibit companies from using personal data to set individualized prices and wages.

The Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee is set to take the first look at , a measure that looks to ban prop bets and place other restrictions on online sports betting.

In the House Judiciary Committee, a pair of bills related to how immigration enforcement can operate in the state are also set for their first hearings. would prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks. would create new restrictions around immigration enforcement in Colorado. The bill would increase how often detention facilities can be inspected and expand rules around the conditions for detainees, among other new requirements and restrictions.

Wednesday

The Senate Transportation and Energy Committee will hear one of two dueling bills regarding data centers in the state. seeks to enact some of the strictest statewide regulations on the booming industry.��

Thursday

The House Business Affairs and Labor Committee will hear . The bill would restrict how chatbots powered by artificial intelligence can interact with minors.

Re: “Bill would ban prop bets on sports apps,” Feb. 27 news story

Colorado lawmakers are once again debating sports betting policy, focusing largely on regulation and revenue.

Those conversations matter. But another question deserves equal attention: Are we watching the rise of the next public health crisis and calling it entertainment?

Sports betting today looks familiar. Tobacco was once marketed as glamorous before we understood its harm. Social media was celebrated for connection before we reckoned with its psychological effects. In both cases, adoption moved faster than awareness.

Now consider modern gambling. It is available 24 hours a day, in every pocket. It is aggressively promoted across broadcasts and social media. It is designed for seamless engagement, with instant deposits, live bets, and constant notifications.

And the group most exposed? Young men.

Scroll through YouTube or Instagram, and you will see big wins and high-energy reactions. What you will not see are the losses, debt, anxiety and shame that often follow.

When something is always within reach, marketed as identity and success, and engineered to keep users coming back, it stops being just a hobby.

This is not about banning gambling. It is about acknowledging design, psychology, and impact, especially at a time when young men already face rising mental health challenges.

As Colorado weighs the future of sports betting, revenue should not be the only metric that matters.

Brandon Zelasko, Denver

Gambling, prostitution, drug use, unrestricted abortion? ‘Wake up, Colorado’

What is the moral and values foundation for the State of Colorado in 2026? With the passing of Amendment 79 in 2024, Colorado has one of, if not the most, unrestricted abortion laws on record. The passage of Proposition 122 in 2022 expanded the opportunity to purchase and decriminalize psilocybin. Amendment 64 (2012) allowed Colorado to become the first state to legally purchase recreational marijuana. In 2020, Colorado legalized sports betting, and in 2025, more than $6 billion dollars was wagered.

Now, is being introduced to recommend that Colorado become the first state to remove criminal penalties associated with prostitution.

My assumption in passing these amendments and propositions is that hey, it����ap your life and body, do whatever you want with no accountability and responsibility for others. Is this the message we want to pass along to the children growing up in Colorado? It is not the message I want to send to my granddaughter.

Wake up, Colorado! Try to be an example for the country rather than a state that is void of any moral foundation.

Gregory Wells, Fort Collins

TABOR is a protector, not a monster

Re: “TABOR is terrorizing Colorado’s townspeople,” March 4 commentary

State Rep. Sean Camacho misreads his audience when he suggests we should drive the Taxpayers Bill of Rights out of Colorado like Frankenstein’s monster.

TABOR, a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1992, has been quite friendly to taxpayers since its inception. It is very flexible, allowing voters to override its restrictions by popular vote. When tax-and-spend liberals like Camacho are unable to persuade voters to give them more tax revenue, they cry foul and seek to change the game, rather than playing by its rules. We should be pleased that Camacho’s efforts failed in 2025. Even his fellow Democrats realized the folly of discarding a crucially important governmental safeguard.

Jim Bensberg,��Colorado Springs

Loving the good news stories out of Loveland

Re: “Beekeeper sees new life for historic Timberlane Farm,” March 1 news story

Is Loveland vying to be the most inviting city in Colorado? On Feb. 23, there was an article about from a storm drain. Then, an article about members from the city police department for two siblings whose own scooter had been stolen, and then following up to find the perpetrator. Now in Sunday’s paper, an article about a man looking to promote a center on a historic farm.

These stories are bright spots for me when most of the news that I read is continually depressing.

C. Greenman,��Lakewood

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

Colorado legislature week in review for Feb. 27, 2026. Gun bills, lawsuits against immigration and an ethics investigation plods on. @The Denver Post

Former state representative tapped to fill vacant Colorado Senate seat

A Democratic vacancy committee has picked former state Rep. Adrienne Benavidez to fill a vacant Colorado Senate seat.

Benavidez, of Commerce City, will replace former Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet after winning the Thursday night vacancy election. Michaelson Jenet resigned earlier this month to take a job as the director of the David Merage Foundation for Confronting Antisemitism.

Benavidez will represent Senate District 21, which stretches from north metro Denver to parts of Adams and Arapahoe counties.
Read more

Former Colorado senator gets probation, community service for faking support letters

Former state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis was sentenced to two years of probation and 150 hours of community service on Friday following her conviction on four felony charges.

Jaquez Lewis, a Longmont Democrat, was convicted in January of three counts of forgery and one count of attempting to influence a public servant. Jaquez Lewis submitted faked letters of support to the Senate Ethics Committee last year as it investigated her treatment of aides.

During sentencing in Denver District Court, Jaquez Lewis acknowledged making “bad decisions” and maintained that the letters of support, which she wrote but signed with other people’s names, were a simple mistake. She also characterized the process as politically motivated.
Read more

Colorado bill would create new fees on alcohol sales to fund treatment, prevention

Colorado lawmakers are pushing new fees on alcohol to fund prevention and treatment, similar to the way the state taxes gambling revenues to offset the costs of addiction.

House Bill 1271 would create three state enterprises to collect fees: one for beer, hard cider and “apple wine”; one for grape wine; and one for spirits. It defines apple wine as beverages made from apples or pears that contain up to 22% alcohol and aren’t cider.

In 2024, the state recorded 1,419 “alcohol-induced deaths,” which includes deaths from organ damage caused by excessive drinking or complications of withdrawal, but not other deaths where alcohol was a factor, such as accidents or certain cancers.

While seeing a decrease is encouraging, Colorado still has a high alcohol-related death rate compared to other states and to itself in 2014, said Dr. Bill Burman, a Denver Health physician and member of the Colorado Alcohol Impacts Coalition.

“We still have a rate of alcohol deaths that is twice the country as a whole and twice the rate a decade ago,” he said.
Read more

Bill would ban prop bets on sports apps in Colorado as lawmakers seek to curb gambling addictions

Colorado lawmakers who are concerned about rising gambling addiction and betting scandals in professional sports filed a bill Wednesday that would prohibit sports-betting apps from offering proposition bets on individual athletes’ performances.

The bipartisan bill — SB26-131 — would also attempt to slow down gambling habits by eliminating credit card usage on sports-betting apps, limiting the number of deposits a person can make into an account, curtailing television commercials and banning push notifications to cellphones from betting companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel.

“Frankly, the more I looked into it, the more I became really, really alarmed by everything that has happened as a consequence of legalized sports betting and, in my view, placing very few restrictions on it,” said Sen. Matt Ball, D-Denver, one of the bill’s sponsors.
Read more

Colorado slashes rape kit testing backlog, but lag time still tops 6 months — 3 times as long as standard

Colorado forensic officials have slashed the turnaround time for sexual assault kit testing, but it still takes analysts more than six months to process and complete a test, a new state audit found.

The 190-day testing lag is well outside the 60-day goal set by the legislature in state law, and it����ap more than twice as long as the Colorado Bureau of Investigation’s internal goal of three months.

But the reduced backlog also represents a significant improvement from last June’s lag time of 450 days, officials from the state auditor’s office told lawmakers Wednesday morning. Both auditors and CBI officials said the agency should be able to hit 90 days before the end of the year.

“At this time last year, we were at over 500 days, maybe it was in the 560s,” said Rep. Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat. “So I do want to acknowledge that there has been significant progress made, and there are a lot of audit recommendations to implement still, and I look forward to working with you on that.”
Read more

Ethics committee finds probable cause to investigate if Colorado House member broke rules

Colorado state Rep. Ron Weinberg will face more scrutiny for allegations of unethical behavior following a vote of his peers Wednesday morning.

The House Ethics Committee found probable cause to further investigate two out of six allegations filed against Weinberg, a Loveland Republican, by fellow GOP Rep. Brandi Bradley. One surviving claim involves allegations that he copied or otherwise misused a master key that could access any of the offices of his fellow legislators and that he used the key to enter at least one member’s space.

The other still-active claim by Bradley alleges that Weinberg made sexually suggestive and inappropriate comments to her and others on multiple occasions.
Read more

Colorado Senate passes measure that would allow people to sue ICE agents for constitutional violations

The state Senate approved a measure Tuesday that would allow Coloradans to sue federal agents if they believed their constitutional rights were violated during immigration enforcement.

The Democrat-backed measure, Senate Bill 5, passed the chamber 20-11 on a party-line vote. It still needs to pass the House before it goes to Gov. Jared Polis for consideration.

SB-5 is part of a trio of bills run by Democrats this year that immigrant-rights advocates hope will help insulate the state from what they see as federal overreach. If it becomes law, the bill will establish a legal right to sue agents in state courts for people whose constitutional rights are violated during immigration enforcement actions.

“Windows are getting smashed in cars in Alamosa, and glass is raining down on children,” Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat who sponsored the bill, said during debate Monday. “… Five-foot-2, middle-aged women are being thrown to the ground and pinned down by federal officials in Durango. Agents with generic uniforms that say ‘sheriff’ or ‘police’ are walking around northwest Aurora, my district.”
Read more

Lawmakers take on Big Data, housing bills, ICE liability in the Colorado legislature this week

Welcome to another Monday in the state Capitol, folks. Lawmakers are settling in for a week of housing debates and efforts to limit the sharing of Big Data.

But first, the Senate is set to have the first floor debate and vote today on Senate Bill 5. The measure is the first of Democrats’ trident of immigration bills, and it would allow Coloradans to file lawsuits against federal agents if residents are injured by those agents during immigration enforcement operations.

The bill was one of the first measures introduced this session, and it cleared its first committee earlier this month on a party-line vote. It����ap likely to pass the full Senate, too, and today’s vote is the first of two it’ll need before it can move to the House.
Read more

The bipartisan bill — — would also attempt to slow down gambling habits by eliminating credit card usage on sports-betting apps, limiting the number of deposits a person can make into an account, curtailing television commercials and banning push notifications to cellphones from betting companies such as DraftKings and FanDuel.

“Frankly, the more I looked into it, the more I became really, really alarmed by everything that has happened as a consequence of legalized sports betting and, in my view, placing very few restrictions on it,” said , D-Denver, one of the bill’s sponsors.

The responsible gaming bill’s introduction sets up a potentially heated debate in the state legislature as public health advocates push for more regulation of gambling while deep-pocketed companies fight to keep growing revenue. An organization representing sports-betting companies called the bill’s provisions “draconian.”

Ball, who is sponsoring the bill with , R-Sterling, said the rapid growth of sports betting in Colorado is causing unexpected problems — including financial debt — across the state, and the legislature needs to move to protect people and the integrity of professional and collegiate sports.

The bill is sponsored in the House by , R-Frederick, and Rep. , D-Denver.

Ball cited studies that show more than half of 18-to-22-year-olds have engaged in some form of sports betting, and surveys of high school students that report that between 60% and 80% have gambled for money within the previous 12 months.

“We just didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Ball said of Colorado’s quick entry into legalized sports betting. “It’s just exploded and it’s happened very fast. I think we can see the harm that’s happened very clearly.”

Colorado voters legalized sports betting in 2019 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a law that had prohibited states from allowing it. It was one of the first states to launch online sportsbooks in May 2020, just after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the country, including putting a pause on most sports. But the state’s residents quickly took to sports betting apps as the world returned to normal.

The amount Colorado bettors have wagered has steadily increased each year, with people betting more than $6 billion on sports in 2025. At the same time, the number of people calling the state’s��problem gambling hotline has risen, too. The hotline averaged about 350 calls per month in 2025, according to the .

‘Smart policy, not prohibition’

Joshua Ewing, executive director of , an advocacy group that pushes for better health policies in the state, said new studies are showing a growing rate of addiction among young men and boys who gamble, and addiction is causing financial debt, strained relationships and emotional stress.

“It����ap not about rolling back voter-approved betting. It����ap about guardrails,” Ewing said of the bill. “The goal is smart policy, not prohibition.”

The sports-betting industry is prepared to push back on the legislation.

Joe Maloney, president of the , which represents the largest sports-betting companies in the United States, including FanDuel, DraftKings and BetMGM, said eliminating or proposition bets — also known as prop bets — would push sports betting back into the illegal, offshore market.

“Colorado should seize this moment to strengthen its state-regulated market — not hand it back to illegal operators or chase bettors to federally regulated platforms,” Maloney wrote in a statement. “This proposal undermines the very consumer protections it claims to advance, rewarding actors who openly flout Colorado law and contribute nothing to the state’s communities by way of tax revenues.”

In an interview with The Denver Post, Maloney said the bill included “draconian proposals” that could not only push gamblers away from the regulated market but also could reduce Colorado’s tax revenue.

“Proposals such as this one threaten both of those things squarely,” he said.

Tax revenue in Colorado has grown every year since sports betting became legal in May 2020. The collected $23.5 million in the first seven months of 2025, according to the most recent data available.

Maloney said prop bets are popular with bettors because of the decades-long popularity of fantasy sports, in which people study individual athletes and their performances to win leagues in which they compete with friends and family.

“We have a betting community that is very fluent in individual outcomes,” Maloney said.

How prop bets work

Prop bets are the moneymakers for sports-betting apps because they come with higher odds. In those bets, a gambler could bet on whether Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic will score 30 or more points in a game or whether Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix will throw more than one touchdown.

Sports-betting apps also allow gamblers to make multiple prop bets at one time to form parlays, which further increase odds in favor of the sportsbooks, but are wildly popular with gamblers.

For example, Bet365 on Wednesday offered a parlay bet called “Joker x Jamal,” where a gambler would win if the Nuggets’ Jokic and Jamal Murray both scored more than 20 points, and if Murray had more than 10 assists and Jokic grabbed more than 10 rebounds. A $10 wager would have won $100 if all four things happened in the Nuggets game against the Celtics.

That bet was a losing proposition. Murray left Wednesday night’s game in the first quarter because of an illness, scoring only two points and logging one assist. Jokic reached both goals.

Colorado already prohibits prop bets on college athletes, but Ball and the bill’s other sponsors want to prohibit them on pro sports, too, because of the temptation among athletes to take bribes to influence outcomes for gamblers.

For example, two Cleveland Guardians pitchers were in November by the U.S. Department of Justice for accepting bribes to rig pitches so corrupt gamblers could win big bets on their performances.

Curbs on TV ads, push alerts

The bill also aims to curb the barrage of television advertisements and phone notifications that people see during sporting events.

It would prohibit advertisements for sports-betting apps between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. It would also ban the betting companies from sending push notifications or text messages to gamblers that solicit bets or deposits.

Revenue from Colorado’s sports-betting market goes to the Colorado Water Conservation Board, which awards grants to various projects around the state that protect and conserve lakes, streams and groundwater.

Ball did not anticipate that the bill would impact those projects, saying sports gambling continues to grow in Colorado every year.

“Any impact that this has on revenue of the sports-betting industry is going to be vastly outweighed by the growth of the industry and how much more tax money is coming into Colorado year over year,” he said.

This is the second bill filed this month that addresses gambling in Colorado. Last week, a group of legislators filed a bill that would block the Colorado Lottery Commission’s plans to open online lottery ticket sales.

A bipartisan group of Colorado legislators on Friday��filed a bill to block online lottery ticket sales even as the formulates its plan with the support of Gov. Jared Polis.

The online ticket sales are necessary to increase revenue for the lottery’s mission to fund outdoor recreation and wildlife, Colorado Lottery director Tom Seaver said.

​​”Governor Polis continues looking for opportunities to expand the lottery, which allows Coloradans to support great organizations like , which funds parks, trails, recreation, open space, wildlife projects and increases access to the outdoors,” Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama said in a statement. “The governor is supportive of increasing consumer convenience and internet freedom.”

The lottery also plans to reverse a longstanding policy that prohibits people from buying tickets with credit cards at retail outlets, such as convenience stores, as it rolls out the online ticket sales, Seaver said.

The bill, , would prohibit that change because Coloradans do not need to go into credit card debt while playing lottery games, said Sen. Jeff Bridges, D-Greenwood Village, who is one of the bill’s sponsors.

The legislators also believe their bill is necessary to prevent people from becoming addicted to gambling, a problem that has grown since Colorado legalized sports betting in 2020. Lottery tickets sold online in other states resemble web-based slot machines, Bridges said.

Online gambling involving traditional casino games such as slot machines, blackjack and roulette is often referred to as iGaming.

“If you look at what these online scratch ticket companies do, it is iGaming,” Bridges said. “The state not only should not be participating in that, but they shouldn’t be pushing it with more than $10 million in advertising. This is iGaming sponsored by the state to the benefit of the state at a time when Coloradans can’t afford to live here.”

However, the lottery needs to increase revenue to support Great Outdoors Colorado and other programs that protect and promote outdoor recreation, Seaver said. He also said that lottery players are asking for more convenient ways to play the games.

“We can’t sit still and meet our numbers,” Seaver said. “We have to keep growing in order to meet the needs of our recipients.”

Great Outdoors Colorado, a trust fund created in 1992, receives 50% of the lottery’s profits to fund outdoor preservation projects. The receives another 40% of lottery sales, and gets a 10% cut.

But the funding structure for Great Outdoors Colorado is the primary reason the lottery wants to boost sales, Seaver said.

The amount of money Great Outdoors Colorado receives is capped each year, based on a formula involving the Consumer Price Index, and the surplus money is doled out to various organizations, including the for school construction and the for youth programs.

In 2025, however, the cap was not met, and those other groups did not receive lottery funding.

The Colorado Lottery needs to increase revenue, and Seaver sees online sales as a way to get there.

“We have to keep growing in order to meet the needs of recipients,” he said.

The lottery wants to open its online ticket sales by selling the products already offered, including Lotto, Powerball and Mega Millions tickets, as well as various scratch-off games, Seaver said. The plans are still in the developmental phase, so it is unclear exactly how those products would be sold online and delivered to customers.

It is also too early to determine whether the lottery would offer digital scratch-ticket sales and what those games would look like.

“We are a long way from saying what kind of game we would bring,” Seaver said. “From my perspective, you start slow with what kind of games you are going to bring and then progress.”

Back-door path to legalized iGaming?

However, critics are warning that Colorado’s creation of online lottery ticket sales could create a back-door entry to online, casino-style gambling, and that addictive behavior will increase because people can play on their cellphones while charging their credit cards.

Those critics point toward the and its online games, such as Lucky Coins Disco Pig and Pantheon of Olympus Lightning. In those games, players enter a credit card and can play as many times as they want, punching buttons to line up icons such as Greek coins or disco balls to win money. The games feature cartoon drawings and music.

The supports the Colorado bill because the group opposes online casino games, said Oliver Barie, the organization’s government relations director.

The association, which is backed by traditional casinos, including Monarch Casino in Black Hawk, and the state’s casino towns, fears an online lottery will lead to state-sponsored digital casino games.

“We’ve seen other states, where oftentimes the first step is you have online lottery sales,” Barie said. “Depending on the iLottery platform, you could have a traditional ticket on your phone or games that look and feel a lot like a slot machine. That����ap where our concerns are.”

Barie conducted by the association that showed a majority of respondents in Colorado opposed a lottery expansion, purchases charged to credit cards and 18-year-olds playing lottery games online.

Internet casino games often involve bright colors, music and cartoon characters that create a “stimulus reward loop” that increases the risk of addiction, said Jamie Glick, president of the .

“Essentially, what that means is the quicker you can interact with a game and get a response back, the higher the likelihood of addiction,” Glick said. “Those games, just from an addiction standpoint, brain chemistry standpoint, they play like iGaming.”

Glick also said he is concerned that online lottery games could appeal to children because they resemble video games. Online games often ask players to scan driver’s licenses to verify their ages, but Glick said young people find ways to circumvent those rules.

“We certainly don’t think there should be any gambling that could attract younger users,” he said.

Finally, allowing credit card sales increases the risk of addiction because it makes it easier for people to keep playing, Glick said.

“One thing I’m not neutral on is gambling on credit, just because that’s one of the biggest risk factors in developing a gambling problem and also disrupting your life through gambling, when you’re gambling with money that you don’t have,” he said.

Seaver said that the lottery would create guardrails and limits for people playing online.

“We’re not the first to the dance on this, and that’s fine,” Seaver said. “We wanted to see how other states managed the product and responsible gambling over the past few years.”

The lottery will not introduce credit card sales until a comprehensive player health program is established, said Meghan Dougherty, a Colorado Lottery spokeswoman.

“At the same time, when this option is available, it will allow players to use the payment method of their choice,” she said.

Lottery tickets already available online

Colorado residents already can buy state lottery tickets online through third-party vendors, known in the industry as couriers.

Four companies offer online ticket sales in Colorado. Their operations are similar to how DoorDash and Instacart allow people to order food and groceries over their phones or computers, except people do not receive a physical ticket at their doorsteps.

The Colorado Lottery does not license or regulate couriers, Dougherty said. The couriers have agreements with brick-and-mortar stores, and those stores are subject to rules that allow them to partner with couriers.

On , one of the companies doing business in Colorado, players pay a convenience fee on their purchases. For example, Colorado residents on Friday could buy a $5 Orange Cash scratch ticket for $6.50 or a $2 Powerball ticket for $2.50.

Lotto.com owns a convenience store on Wadsworth Boulevard called Players Cafe, said Tom Metzger, the website’s chief executive officer.

There, people can buy lottery tickets or traditional convenience store items. The online sales are routed to that store, where employees scan tickets sold at the store and then send pictures to players to confirm their purchases and log their serial numbers.

If someone buys a scratch ticket, Lotto.com puts a “digital cover” over the numbers so the player can simulate scratching off the latex of a paper ticket with their fingers.

Prize money is deposited into an online wallet, and anyone who wins $600 or more still has to pick up the paper ticket to cash their winnings.

Lotto.com targets people who do not ordinarily play the lottery at convenience stores, Metzger said. The company advertises online and tries to lure people who Metzger describes as “incremental players.” The average transaction is $10, he said.

The couriers do not sell products that are not already offered by the Colorado Lottery.

After the bill was filed Friday, courier companies began scrambling to figure out how it might impact their business models. Bridges said he did not intend to put them out of business and believes they are protected. But others weren’t so clear on the bill’s language.

Metzger said his business would not suffer if the Colorado Lottery eventually offers online ticket sales. He cited New Hampshire, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., as places where couriers and state-sanctioned online lottery sales co-exist.

“We live in an age of convenience and, quite frankly, if you don’t want your players to age out and you to continue returning those funds to good causes, you have to reach players where they are,” Metzger said. “People just don’t have the same behavioral patterns that they used to. So we need to modernize the lottery like everything else is modern.”

The association, which represents casinos, including Monarch Casino in Black Hawk, conducted the poll after learning that gambling companies were interested in legalizing internet gambling — known as iGaming — in Colorado, a state in which online sports betting is popular.

While iGaming is legal in seven states, no bills are pending before the Colorado General Assembly that would legalize it.

Oliver Barie, the association’s government relations director, said Colorado registered the largest opposition for iGaming in any poll the group has conducted.

However, the pollsters said 23% of respondents were unfamiliar with the concept when first asked about their opinion. Another 58% were opposed when first asked about it. Once respondents received definitions and information about iGaming, the level of opposition rose to 78%, according to the poll’s results.

“Colorado is a poster child for opposition,” Barie said. “These voters get it. They understand it.”

Do you have a gambling problem?

The Problem Gambling Coalition of Colorado helps people who are addicted to gambling. Call 303-955-4682 or visit for help.

The Denver Post reports on the impacts of gambling in Colorado and wants to hear your stories about betting on sports. Please contact reporter Noelle Phillips at nphillips@denverpost.com if you are willing to talk about your experience.

The association’s poll was conducted by , a polling and analytics firm, and has a margin of error of 3.45%. The company polled 801 likely general election voters in January through text messages and live interviews. The polls sampled Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters as well as people from various age groups and educational backgrounds.

Internet gambling is legal in seven states — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut, West Virginia, Rhode Island and Nevada. Voters in Maine approved iGaming for a tribal group, but it has not been implemented.

In iGaming, participants can bet money on slots, blackjack, baccarat and other games traditionally played in casinos, and they can charge those bets to credit cards.

Casinos oppose iGaming because it could potentially lure customers away from traditional casinos. Studies have shown that legalized iGaming causes brick-and-mortar casinos to lose about 16% of their revenue, Barie said. That, in turn, trickles into the local economy, which is often dependent on casino visitors.

“Often those casinos are the lifeblood of the community,” he said. “If the casino is not doing well in the town, the town is not going to do well either because they rely on those casinos.”

The town of ��, and are members of the association, according to its website.

Among Colorado voters who were opposed to iGaming, 50% said they were concerned about addiction, while another 43% said they were concerned about debt and financial issues. Another 30% expressed concerns about youth access to online gambling, according to the poll results.

The poll also asked voters whether they opposed a planned expansion that would allow anyone 18 or older to purchase lottery tickets online and charge those purchases to a credit card.

A majority — 70% — said they did not approve of 18-year-olds buying lottery tickets online, and 76% said credit card charges for online lottery tickets should be prohibited, according to the poll.

The Colorado Lottery is working on an expansion that would allow people to buy tickets online directly from the state lottery and purchase those tickets with credit cards, something that is currently prohibited in the state. People can already buy Colorado Lottery tickets online through third-party vendors.

Tom Seaver, the Colorado Lottery director, said the state is aiming to introduce its online product next year after watching rollouts in other states. The Lottery’s market research shows that 38% of 12,000 people it polled said they would like to buy tickets with their credit cards.

“Research and polls can be very conflicting,” Seaver said.

Despite reaching the AFC Championship Game, Denver isn’t ranked among the top-10 teams in betting odds, .

The Broncos have +2,000 odds — meaning a $100 bet would win $2,000 — to win Super Bowl LX, according to BetMGM. They are tied for the 12th-best odds with the Texans and Jaguars.

The Seahawks (+800) are first, followed by the Rams (+900), Ravens (+1,200), Bills (+1,200), Packers (+1,400), Chiefs (+1,400), Eagles (+1,400), Lions (+1,500), Charger (+1,500), Patriots (+1,500) and 49ers (+1,700).

also has Denver at +2,000, while gives the Broncos slightly better odds at +1,800. The Broncos had the 12th-best odds, according to the two sites.

Super Bowl LXI will take place on Feb. 14, 2027 at LoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.

BetMGM agreed to a $50,000 fine although the company will only have to pay half that amount if it avoids any more violations of Colorado sports betting rules for the next two years. The company also agreed to show proof to Colorado that it is properly training its live traders, who establish odds, on the state’s rules and how to set up bets in the Colorado market. The penalty was levied Thursday morning by the Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission.

Accepting bets on individual college athletes’ performances in any sporting event is illegal in Colorado. For example, a Colorado sports fan cannot bet on whether a University of Colorado kicker will make a field goal during the third quarter. The same bet would be allowed for the Denver Broncos kicker because it is an NFL game and proposition bets are allowed in professional sports.

BetMGM is the second gaming company to be fined this year for violating the rule on college proposition bets, also known as prop bets.

DraftKing was fined $90,000 in July for accepting improper bets on a college basketball player’s performance in a 2025 NCAA basketball game and for accepting wagers on the 2024 Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match, which the commission had determined was not a qualified sporting event per Colorado’s betting rules.

The BetMGM wagers were accepted during four college basketball games and one college football game.

The company received eight wagers totaling $346 during two 2023 National Invitation Tournament basketball games, according to a stipulation agreement between the company and Colorado’s gaming commission.

BetMGM also accepted proposition bets on games during the women’s 2024 NCAA basketball tournament, accepting a total of 35 wagers for $443.07, the stipulation agreement stated. Those games were between Iowa and Louisiana State University and the University of Connecticut and the University of Southern California. Those four games featured basketball stars Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins.

Finally, BetMGM accepted $90.71 for five prop bets during an October 2024 football game between University of Nevada Las Vegas and Oregon State University, the stipulation agreement stated.

The stipulation agreement did not specify which athletes’ performances were the focus of any of the proposition bets.

BetMGM reported the improper bets to state regulators, but the three violations led to a penalty, said Christopher Schroder, executive director of the Colorado Division of Gaming.

“By and large, the operators do a good job of avoiding those illegal bets in Colorado, and when they do, they self-report,” he said.

Prop bets have become controversial in the United States after multiple professional athletes have been accused of altering their performances during a game to benefit bettors, who were made aware of their plans to throw bad pitches or miss basketball shots.

In October, the FBI unveiled a massive investigation into rigged betting, accusing Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and five others of an insider sports betting conspiracy, and earlier this month two Cleveland Guardians pitchers were indicted on multiple felonies for agreeing to throw specific pitches during games.

Rules on prop bets vary by state, and now some states are considering outlawing all prop bets to avoid the temptation for athletes to rig games.