For now, the answer is simple: Nothing has changed; keep your voting plans.

Colorado county clerks are hard at work preparing to mail your ballot, just as every county clerk has reliably and responsibly done for more than a decade. You do not need to plan around your ballot not arriving. You do not need to become an expert in federal litigation. And you certainly do not need to spend the next two months wondering whether Colorado’s elections are going to change.

While we are deeply concerned about what is happening in Washington, that is our job. Yours is to vote.

The U.S. Supreme Court just blocked new federal requirements that would have fundamentally changed how states conduct mail-ballot elections, including requiring election officials to redesign ballot envelopes at the last minute, provide voter information to the U.S. Postal Service, and obtain federal approval before ballots can be mailed to voters.

Changing election mailing mechanics just weeks before voting begins raises serious practical concerns. It also raises serious legal concerns.

That’s why Colorado challenged these requirements in court.

It’s why Colorado election officials are preparing for what happens next.

These two statements are important! They illustrate how strong institutions respond to uncertainty. Election officials help fight unlawful actions through the courts and also prepare for worst-case scenarios that we hope never happen.

Colorado knows a lot about building great election systems. We’ve built our elections to withstand the unexpected. We became national leaders not because nothing ever goes wrong, but because we built a system designed around the reality that things do. We’ve spent years improving and strengthening our laws and processes, and we have experienced professionals ready for whatever comes next. Our election system is resilient by design.

Election officials plan for snowstorms and wildfires. We prepare for power outages, equipment failures, cyberattacks, and misinformation. We test our systems. We audit our elections. We build redundancies. And when a new threat emerges, we plan for that too.

The new federal mail-ballot requirements are now one of those contingencies.

Across Colorado, Clerks are examining timelines, staffing, voting centers, ballot distribution options, and the many other operational questions that could arise. That planning should reassure voters, not frighten them.

We hope we don’t need our backup plans. But if something unexpected happens, we will be ready to serve voters, count ballots, and deliver results.

The Constitution gives states the power to design and administer elections. Colorado has exercised that responsibility by building a secure, accessible election system in which more than 95% of voters cast the ballot they receive in the mail. We believe that authority should be respected.

When the federal administration attempts to bypass Congress regarding elections, it exceeds its authority, and states must stand up for themselves. We should use the Constitution. We should use the courts. We should defend our voters. And while that fight is underway, the people responsible for running elections should prepare for every possible outcome.

There may come a point when federal rules change what Colorado voters need to know or do. If that happens, election officials will explain it clearly. Until then, we should be careful not to turn hypothetical problems into real ones. Responsible election communication requires distinguishing between what could happen and what is happening.

Americans do not benefit when faith in our elections is lost.

So here’s where this issue stands right now:

The U.S. Postal Service’s new ballot requirements are currently blocked. Colorado has challenged them in court and won at the highest court in the land. Meanwhile, election officials are preparing for every contingency, and Colorado voters should plan to vote the way they normally do.

Check your registration. Watch for information from your county clerk. When your ballot arrives, vote it and return it early if you can. And if circumstances change, trust that Colorado’s election officials will tell you what you need to know.

That¶¶Òőap how we keep our elections secure.

Amanda Gonzalez is the Jefferson County clerk and recorder, and Justin Grantham is the Fremont County clerk and recorder.

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Senior U.S. District Court Judge John Kane ruled Wednesday that the districts and schools don’t have standing to sue the state, in part because they aren’t facing clear harm. The ruling is a win for the state and a loss for the conservative-leaning districts and schools that had challenged the state’s non-discrimination law, specifically its gender identity protections.

Kane’s decision affirmed by a magistrate judge, a type of judge whose decisions can be reviewed by a full judge if one party objects.

The eight plaintiffs in the case — School District 49, Colorado Springs District 11, Academy District 20, Montezuma-Cortez School District, James Irwin Charter Schools, Monument Academy, the Classical Academy, and Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Education Services — objected to the January decision by Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell.

It¶¶Òőap not clear what impact the ruling will have. The districts and charter schools that sued wanted the court to prevent Colorado officials from investigating, penalizing, or fining them for policies banning transgender athletes from joining school sports teams that match their gender identity. State officials so far have not penalized public schools that have such policies.

A second defendant in the lawsuit, the Colorado High School Activities Association, agreed not to penalize schools and districts that have such policies as .

The association’s bylaws for years of transgender athletes to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity and said the group can review district decisions on such matters. But a spokesperson for the group, which governs high school sports in Colorado and is often called CHSAA, said at the time it had never penalized a school or district for policies on transgender athletes.

Some Colorado districts allow transgender students to play on teams that match their gender identity, some prohibit it, and some decide on a case-by-case basis.

Peter Hilts, the superintendent of District 49, which spearheaded the lawsuit, said of Wednesday’s decision in an emailed statement, “We respectfully disagree with the judge’s ruling, but given that we have already secured protections for our students and coaches via a settlement with CHSAA, we are considering how to proceed.”

The Colorado Attorney General’s office declined to comment on the ruling.

, after its school board narrowly passed a controversial policy banning transgender middle and high school students from joining school teams that align with their gender identity. The policy, which applies to both transgender boys and transgender girls, was developed after President Trump’s executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that allows athletes assigned male at birth to participate in girls’ or women’s sports.

When District 49’s school board considered the new policy, . But instead of playing defense, the district filed its own lawsuit. The other seven districts and schools joined as plaintiffs a couple of months later.

Kane’s 23-page ruling affirmed Dominguez Braswell’s January argument that the eight districts and schools didn’t have standing to sue the state on their own behalf or to sue on behalf of their students.

If a party has standing, that means they have a right to have their lawsuit heard in court. One criteria for standing is that the plaintiff is facing harm.

Kane found no proof of current or future harm. He said the districts and schools didn’t show evidence of a transgender student-athlete who might take action because they believe they have faced discrimination as a result of the plaintiffs’ student-athlete policies.

“I cannot infer a speculated lawsuit or enforcement action would arise, if no transgender student, who would be subjected to discrimination, exists,” wrote Kane.

Kane and Dominguez Braswell said the districts and schools don’t have standing to sue on behalf of all students because their students may have different opinions on whether transgender students should be allowed to play on teams that match their gender identity.

Kane noted that a recent that allowed states to bar transgender athletes from playing on school teams that match their gender identity isn’t relevant to his ruling.

“The Supreme Court¶¶Òőap opinion does not alter the requirements for standing, and as such, does not impact the analysis here,” he said.

This story was , a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at

Coloradans need to start preparing now for the possibility that Trump’s efforts to create a federal screening system for voters fail spectacularly and their ballots don’t arrive. Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian or unaffiliated voter, do not let the White House disenfranchise you.

If a voter’s ballot doesn’t arrive in the mail as expected, voters can always cast a ballot in person at a Voter Service and Polling Center in their county. Early in-person voting in Colorado will open 15 days before election day.

However, the problem is that those centers are not designed to accommodate the more than 3 million voters expected to participate in November’s Midterm election, and even if only a small portion of voters are denied mail ballots by Trump’s new screening system, it could put a huge strain on Election Day.

Counties should start preparing now to open additional voter service centers if lines get long. Trump’s executive order still faces legal challenges and an injunction, but we cannot rely on the Supreme Court to do the right thing. Although the court set a precedent in 2024, saying the court’s role included preventing turmoil during an election, we still worry they will not protect elections from federal interference.

When the justices ordered Colorado to put Trump back on the ballot despite the 14th Amendment’s clear language prohibiting someone who had engaged in an insurrection from holding the presidency, their main justification was this:

“Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos — arriving at any time or different times, up to and perhaps beyond the Inauguration.”

Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos from the White House — arriving at any time or different times, up to Election Day.

Trump’s executive order has three crucial parts, and all of them have major flaws that promise nothing short of “chaos.”

First, he orders the head of the Social Security Administration and the director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to get together and use their data to create a list of eligible voters for every state. Trump alleges that millions of non-citizens voters are participating in elections, and he sees this as a way to prevent them from voting. Secretary of State Jena Griswold did well to refuse to give Trump voter’s social security numbers in a battle that has gone to court.

However, the data from these organizations could easily exclude eligible voters. U.S. citizens who have recently moved but failed to update their addresses could find their names are not on the “eligible voter” list in their new state even though they have done everything right to register to vote in their new home.

Second, Trump has ordered local election officials to include a barcode on the outside of the envelope that will include voter data to be cross-checked with the new “eligible voter” list the administration approves. Postal Service employees will be tasked with scanning the barcode and ensuring the person is on the list. If a person is not on the list, the Postal Service will not deliver the ballot. This opens up room for error as two systems converge – one based on state voter registration records and one based on a list that is supposed to represent federal data’s records of who would be eligible to vote in the state at a point in time roughly 60 days before the election when it is finalized.

Now voters will be responsible for maintaining their records with the state and with the federal government to maintain their eligibility to vote by mail. If they fail to update their federal records – Trump also ordered the Department of Homeland Security to create an online database where people can check and update their federal records – their ballot will not be delivered.

In Colorado, that will mean the voter who does not receive a ballot by mail will have to vote in person. Fortunately, Colorado has early voting, so there should be time for voters to recognize the mistake and show up in person. But should we find that substantial amounts of ballots are not arriving in mailboxes, tremendous pressure will be put on a system meant to assist the minority of voters who chose to vote in person in Colorado.

All of this is rolling out two months before the election. Only 68 days remain between now and Tuesday, Nov. 3. If Trump were to act responsibly, he’d pause his executive order with the intention of reviving it when there is time to implement it with care so as not to disenfranchise voters inadvertently.

Trump is not acting responsibly, however. He is attempting to solve a very limited problem – non-citizens voting in the U.S. elections —  with a sledgehammer when it really needs a scalpel.

It is a felony for someone who is not a citizen to vote in an election.

Every year there are only a few reported cases of non-citizens casting ballots, and usually it was an honest mistake and not a nefarious plot to sway elections. Immigrants are here at the mercy of our laws, and having a felony charge jeopardizes many legal immigration statuses and for those not here legally, it could make them a target for deportation.

We must take voter fraud seriously, but Trump’s executive order will do more harm than good, and we find it likely to be an unconstitutional infringement on Colorado’s orderly and secure election system.

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The high court on Monday rejected a challenge from 23 states, including Colorado, that sought to stop Trump’s March executive order restricting mail voting. The court did not give Trump final approval for his attempt to exert federal control over mail-in voting, however. Instead, a majority of justices, in an unsigned order, decided that the states could not prove harm from the executive order, and thus had no standing to sue — yet.

“Where we are right now, today, nothing has changed,” Griswold said Tuesday in an interview, referring to the Nov. 3 general election. “But there is this ongoing fight that is evolving.”

The decision was the latest development in just one of several ongoing fights over the executive order. In another case, a separate court decision . This week’s ruling is also expected to be a precursor to more legal fights. (On Wednesday morning, after this story was published, Colorado joined 24 other states to sue the Trump administration again. The suit argues that the implementation of new rules proposed by the administration would hurt states’ ability to conduct their own elections. The Supreme Court’s ruling had allowed that rulemaking to continue.)

And with less than 70 days before Election Day — and just over a month before county clerks start mailing ballots to Colorado voters — it¶¶Òőap not clear what changes would even be feasible.

Griswold said it would be “extraordinarily hard for states to change the voting processes,” even if the Trump administration were somehow successful. The U.S. Constitution holds that states oversee their own elections, though Trump’s challenge has no precedent.

“Ultimately, I can’t foresee or predict what the courts will say,” Griswold said. She noted that mail voting remains overwhelmingly popular among Coloradans of all political stripes, with more than 95% of voters casting their ballots that way. “I am optimistic, and I hope they squarely plant themselves on the right side of history.”

Still, the Trump administration heralded the ruling.

“This is a major win for the security of American elections,” Lauren Bis, a spokesperson for the White House, said in a statement. “These are commonsense measures that protect the security of mail-in ballots and ensure only Americans are electing American leaders. This Administration will continue to lawfully enact the agenda President Trump was elected on — which includes the safety and security of our elections.”

As it stands now, Colorado ballots must go out to overseas voters by Sept. 19. County clerks can start sending ballots to most other voters Oct. 2, about a month before the election. Regular ballots must be returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

In his , Trump sought to create a national voter list that the federal government could use to determine people’s eligibility to vote by mail. Part of that would be overseen by the U.S. Postal Service, which on Friday to carry out that task. They require specific formatting for envelopes containing mail ballots and say states must use an electronic system to identify to the Postal Service who is voting by mail. If states don’t comply, their mail ballots wouldn’t get sent.

Andrew Garber, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, said those rules will almost certainly set the stage for the states to continue their challenge. Garber is one of the lawyers representing the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts in a separate legal challenge to the executive order.

That case resulted in the still-active injunction halting the implementation of the executive order.

“The president still has no authority to determine who gets to vote by mail,” Garber said of the current landscape. “And the U.S. Postal Service is still legally required to deliver the mail.”

The fate of the executive order remains to be seen, even if Garber and others are confident that Trump overstepped his authority. He said any attempt to outright cancel mail-in voting would be an “impossible needle to thread.”

Instead, he warned of mass confusion and worried about “rushed, flawed implementation” if the new rules were allowed to proceed. The Postal Service isn’t designed to gatekeep which voters can receive ballots — and trying to force a new system in place with only a month before voters start to receive ballots is a recipe for chaos, he said.

The ongoing, multifront legal fight — with multiple cases in multiple stages of litigation — also carries its own risk of confusing and disenfranchising voters, he said.

“It’s fair to say right now (that the fight over mail ballots is) more smoke than fire,” Garber said. “With the caveat that smoke is still really harmful.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Colorado’s second-largest school district, she said in a , had made “sweeping” violations of , the landmark law passed in 1972 to ensure women and girls can participate in school activities without harassment or discrimination.

Jeffco Public Schools’ offense? The district has policies supporting transgender students — such as allowing them to access bathrooms based on their gender identities — that conflict with the Trump administration’s new interpretation of Title IX.

“The district¶¶Òőap decision to prioritize ‘gender identity’ over ensuring equal access for its female students is unconscionable,” Richey said at the time.

Yet Title IX attorneys and experts interviewed by The Denver Post disagree with how the Trump administration is applying the law, which they say doesn’t require schools to prohibit transgender athletes from playing on teams that align with their gender identities.

“The way that Title IX is being used currently around this debate is quite overblown and not really proportionate to the actual issues in the country,” said Ashlyn Hare, a Title IX attorney with Hutchinson Black and Cook in Boulder.

The federal government’s new interpretation of Title IX has left Jeffco Public Schools in a bind.

The Education Department’s says that if Jeffco doesn’t comply with an order to change its policies, the district could lose more than $50 million in federal funding for things such as special education programs and school lunches.

Jeffco counters that changing policies would place the school district in violation of , which protects transgender students’ access to facilities based on their gender identities.

So Jeffco Public Schools is taking the matter to court, arguing in a recently filed federal lawsuit that Colorado state law trumps the Education Department¶¶Òőap new Title IX interpretation.

Attorneys specializing in Title IX agree with the district.

Efforts to ban transgender athletes from girls sports have gained traction under the second Trump administration, which last year rolled back previous guidance that expanded Title IX’s scope to include harassment or exclusion based on sexual orientation and gender identity as a form of discrimination.

The administration strictly defines gender based on the sex a person was assigned at birth and has used the federal government¶¶Òőap new definition of Title IX — which was — to investigate K-12 districts nationwide that have policies supporting transgender students.

“To follow an executive order that is contrary to state law is to make a decision about policy and politics as opposed to what is… the binding law in your state,” said Scott Lewis, co-founder of the .

At least two Colorado districts — Jeffco and Denver Public Schools — have gotten caught up in the Education Department¶¶Òőap rollback of Title IX protections for transgender students.

The agency launched one investigation into DPS last year after the district built a gender-neutral bathroom at East High School and a second Title IX probe in July after a teacher was accused of making female students kiss each other in class.

But the Education Department has been more aggressive in pursuing its case against Jeffco Public Schools, spurring the district to sue the agency last month. The 55-page lawsuit details Jeffco’s fight with the Trump administration, from nine months of silence to the allegation that dozens of boys are taking girls’ spots on sports teams.

Losing federal funding would significantly hurt Jeffco Public Schools, which recently slashed $45 million from its budget and cut 139 jobs. The district, which has a nearly $1 billion budget, still had to use $13 million from reserves to balance the budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, despite those reductions.

“Protecting our inclusive student culture is worth the investment,” said Erin Kenworthy, vice president of Jeffco’s Board of Education. “This fight came to us. We weren’t looking for it.”

An investigation is launched

The Office for Civil Rights first revealed its investigation into the district last year, calling it one of several actions the agency was taking in recognition of

“This administration will fight on every front to protect women’s and girls’ sports, intimate spaces, dormitories and living quarters, and fraternal and panhellenic organizations,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement at the time.

The Office for Civil Rights sent Jeffco Public Schools notice of the investigation on June 2, 2025, and the district responded to the government¶¶Òőap request a month later. But the district didn’t hear back from the department until earlier this year, when it announced that it had determined Jeffco violated Title IX.

Between June 2025 and March, the Office of Civil Rights did not interview staff or students, nor did the agency send employees to visit the school district as is typical in such investigations, Jeffco’s lawsuit alleged.

“Jeffco did not receive any communication at all from OCR during the investigation,” the district¶¶Òőap attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

A spokesperson for the Office for Civil Rights did not respond to an interview request.

The agency concluded Jeffco Public Schools violated Title IX based solely on allegations made by a family that sued the district two years ago, the lawsuit states.

The family alleged the district assigned their 11-year-old daughter the same bed as a transgender girl on a trip in 2023. A federal judge the family’s lawsuit last year.

In Jeffco’s lawsuit, attorneys argued that the Office of Civil Rights can’t assert that the family’s allegations against the district are factual because the office didn’t conduct an investigation.

The Office for Civil Rights also alleged more than 60 male students were competing on girls sports teams at Jeffco Public Schools, an accusation the district denies. The boys, according to Jeffco, are managers, trainers or mascots — not athletes.

The federal agency ordered Jeffco to take three steps to resolve the alleged Title IX violations, including issuing a public statement that the district will comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law and its definition of the words “sex,” “male” and “female”.

The district must also reverse policies supporting transgender students and give bathroom access and sports-team eligibility based on the sex students were assigned at birth, according to the lawsuit.

Third, the district is ordered to review any recognitions, including awards,  given to boys competing on girls sports teams and restore the accolades to any girls excluded because of their presence.

The district’s attorneys argued in the lawsuit that Jeffco Public Schools can’t comply with the federal government¶¶Òőap orders because it has to follow the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

‘Kind of a scare tactic’

An executive order represents the Trump administration’s interpretation of a law — not the law itself, Title IX attorneys who spoke to The Post said.

“An executive order doesn’t really mean anything,” Hare said. “…(It) was kind of a scare tactic.”

This means school systems in states without protections for transgender students can follow the president¶¶Òőap executive order without any problems, but that¶¶Òőap not the case in states like Colorado, where there are laws that conflict with the order, Lewis added.

A school district that chooses to follow the executive order over state law is more likely to lose in state court, he said.

Such a case is already making its way through the courts.

District 49 near Colorado Springs has sued state officials, arguing that the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act violates students’ rights by allowing transgender girls to play on teams that match their gender identity.

District 49 after its school board passed a policy banning transgender students from playing on sports teams based on their gender identities, a decision made in the wake of Trump’s executive order.

Hare represented the , which was one of the organizations sued by District 49. The association was dropped from the lawsuit after it agreed not to sanction conservative districts and schools for their policies prohibiting transgender students from playing on girls sports teams.

Courts leave it up to states — so far

Parker Baxter, director of the at the University of Colorado Denver, called Jeffco Public Schools’ argument regarding the state Anti-Discrimination Act “a little bit of a distraction.”

The primary fight, he said, is over whether the executive branch can enforce its interpretation of Title IX when the Department of Education did not undergo the normal rulemaking process, including taking public comment.

States, Baxter said, weren’t given a chance to weigh in on how the change might impact them and their existing laws.

Earlier this year, the , including one in Idaho, that prohibit transgender girls from playing on female sports teams. But the ruling did not address what happens in states with laws that allow transgender students to play on teams that match their gender identities.

“They basically left it to each state,” Lewis said of the ruling. “Colorado does not have to change its law unless it wants to, and it does not seem to be an inclination for that.”

Jeffco Public Schools argues in its lawsuit that a recent ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court backs up the district¶¶Òőap position. Earlier this year, the court found that must follow the state’s Anti-Discrimination Act and provide gender-affirming care to transgender patients despite the federal government¶¶Òőap threat to pull funding.

The school district¶¶Òőap attorneys said the Education Department¶¶Òőap attempt to force Jeffco to violate state law has “undermined community trust.”

“Jeffco students and staff are uncertain as to what rules will apply to their access to facilities and athletics when school resumes this fall and whether they will have sufficient funding to support their education programs and activities,” the attorneys wrote.

Re: “Trump: ICE stops should resume,” July 16 news story

In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court in Tennessee v. Garner recognized constitutional authority for the use of deadly force to prevent escape and provided a two-prong test to guide the exercise of that authority.

First, an officer must have probable cause to believe that the fleeing suspect is dangerous, and second, the use of deadly force must be necessary to effect the seizure. The Court concluded that in order for an officer under the Fourth Amendment to use deadly force against a fleeing suspect, the officer had to determine that the suspect had committed a felony and that if allowed to escape, presented an imminent danger to the public. As a police officer and later a police chief, this guidance was reinforced at initial academy training and subsequent annual training through bulletins provided by the FBI, DOJ, and local state authorities.

It was embedded in the consciousness of every law enforcement officer. Further, the court provided guidance that law enforcement could further restrict this guidance: “In other words, just because you may think you have the authority to use deadly force, you do not need to apply this authority.” There is a reasonableness factor as well. “Can the suspect be apprehended at a later date without endangering the public?”

Police departments have policies that constrain firing at moving vehicles given the ensuing risk involved.

I am shocked at the seemingly quick application to the use of deadly force by ICE and question the training that the officers receive, if at all.

Where is the accountability?

Philip Arreola, Denver

A plea to Dems: Socialism is going to be so much worse than Trump

The “Democratic Socialists” Democrat primary winners have said the only way to compensate for “racism” is with reparations (taxpayer money); police should be defunded and prisons emptied (“not necessary when all have enough money”); ICE should be abolished and the border opened (we’re already having problems paying for 5 million asylum seekers’ housing, food, etc.); and it¶¶Òőap fine to put “transgender women” (fully functioning males) in girls/women’s restrooms/locker rooms, sports, and prisons.

They espouse diversity (jobs for even unqualified applicants), equity (not equality), and inclusion (but not for everyone), identity politics, and anti-semitic policies. They want to weaken — even overthrow — our country. They don’t realize that socialism only benefits its leaders. Immigrants who ran from socialist countries know what happens when socialists who promised “free stuff” take over.

Today’s Democrat Party is nothing like Clinton’s Democrat Party. You have a chance to change this now. You may not have a chance later.

You may despise Trump, but I think you would despise the poverty and tyranny of socialism more. Don’t let one man — who will be gone in 2 years — tempt you to vote for leftists. Your hate doesn’t hurt Trump. (But it can cause actual destructive changes in your brain.) Democrats need to disempower the Democratic Socialists of America.

Angie Many, Eckert

Why is Congress ignoring prevention screening for Alzheimer’s?

For the first time, there is an FDA-approved test to screen for Alzheimer’s! Sadly, without congressional approval, Medicaid and Medicare cannot pay for the test.

My wife, Eve, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2020 at the young age of 60, and by last year, the disease had progressed to late-stage Alzheimer’s. Had this screening tool existed in 2014 when my wife turned 55, because of Alzheimer’s long lead time, she would have tested positive. We would have had at least six more years to turn our bucket list of dreams into memories.

More than 7 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Currently, an Alzheimer’s diagnosis comes only after the person has mild cognitive impairment. The Alzheimer’s screening test will enable a diagnosis and treatment before the person has cognitive impairment, pushing longevity and enabling dreams to become memories. The Alzheimer’s Screening and Prevention Act (ASAP) authorizes Medicaid and Medicare to pay for the blood test.

As of today, only three of Colorado’s 10 federal representatives are co-sponsors for the ASAP Act. Thank you, Congressman Neguse, Congressman Crow and Congresswoman Pettersen.

These federal representatives are not signed on as Co-Sponsors for the ASAP Act: Senator Bennet, Senator Hickenlooper, Congresswoman DeGette, Congresswoman Boebert, Congressman Crank, Congressman Evans and Congressman Hurd.

These federal representatives are ignoring the health and well-being of Coloradans. Please push your representatives to co-sponsor the ASAP Act.

Daniel Brown, Wheat Ridge

Crack down on license plate violations

Re: “More speed cameras, enforcement coming to metro Denver,” April 1 news story

The post should have a reporter find out how many speeders get away because of hidden or nonexistent license plates. It’s a sure way to get away with bad driving.

Donald L. Sloan, Denver

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The restores a 30-year legal interpretation that the Department of Homeland Security had sought to upend last year in its effort to arrest and deport millions of immigrants without proper legal status.

The decision will provide a pathway to temporary release for a wide swath of immigrant detainees who were arrested inside the United States, rather than at the border. They were detained in states under the 10th Circuit’s umbrella — Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico. The ruling will also likely curb the crush of emergency legal requests filed by immigrants seeking release from what has often become indefinite detention at the Aurora detention center.

The court’s ruling adds to a growing pile of legal opinions that have largely — but not completely — rejected the to longtime U.S. residents.

“Adopting the Government¶¶Òőap interpretation of (the federal law) would pose grave constitutional problems because there is little justification, let alone a strong one, for detaining every one of the millions of unadmitted noncitizens in our country,” Judge Richard Federico wrote in the court’s Tuesday opinion.

The case was filed by attorneys for Rigoberto Santillan Quiroz, who was arrested in Oklahoma last year after nearly two decades in the United States. Because Santillan Quiroz was already settled in the country and was been arrested in its interior, he normally would have been able to request a bail hearing.

But last summer, Homeland Security officials moved to reinterpret federal law. They began treating detainees like Santillan Quiroz as if they had been arrested at the border — and were therefore not eligible to request temporary release.

That practice has been repeatedly challenged in federal court in Colorado, where lower-court judges have overwhelmingly rejected the Trump administration’s reinterpretation.

On Tuesday, the 10th Circuit did that, too. The three-judge panel wrote that the administration’s “novel, contrary position” presented serious constitutional concerns to “potentially millions of noncitizens” and rejected the government’s “interpretive quantum leap.”

Tim Macdonald, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which was part of the case, hailed the decision Thursday.

“This should guarantee bond hearings for 500, 600, 700, 800 people who are in the Geo detention center in Aurora right now,” he said, referring to the Geo Group, which operates the center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “What we’ve seen from the administration is no end of efforts to try to resist giving people their day in court, or giving them fundamental due process.”

The ruling does not mean every detainee will receive bail, but it would give them the opportunity to argue they pose no flight risk and aren’t dangerous. Still, immigration judges — which hires and fires them — to keep immigrants detained.

In an unsigned statement, a representative for the Homeland Security Department said the agency “strongly disagrees with the Tenth Circuit panel and is confident in its legal position regarding mandatory detention.”

While the ruling will provide relief for many detainees in Colorado and its neighboring states, it does not fully end the debate. While four federal appellate courts have now rejected the Trump administration’s bail policy, two others have sided with the Homeland Security Department.

That sets up an almost-certain U.S. Supreme Court intervention, and the Homeland Security Department said it had already appealed one adverse ruling to the country’s highest court.

Writing for the 10th Circuit, Federico acknowledged that reality.

“We conclude by recognizing again the stakes of this dispute over statutory interpretation,” he wrote. “In our circuit, thousands of noncitizens are likely subject to mandatory detention under the Government¶¶Òőap newfound statutory reading and policy. Many more legal battles over this policy are currently playing out in courts across the country. Five circuits have already weighed in. Ultimately, only one court, the Supreme Court, can settle this issue once and for all.”

The high court has not yet agreed to take up that case or others addressing the bail question, Macdonald said, though he expected the justices to consider it in their next term.

The nation’s highest court it would hear the case, in which Nebraska officials claim Colorado water administrators are violating a century-old water compact by failing to send enough of the river’s water across the border. They also say Colorado officials are interfering in the neighboring state’s efforts to build .

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Monday denied Nebraska officials’ allegations that the Centennial State was violating the 1923 South Platte River Compact.

“Colorado is complying with the South Platte River Compact and not interfering with Nebraska’s efforts to build the Perkins County Canal,” Weiser “Today’s court decision merely opens the door for Nebraska to bring its claims against Colorado. Nebraska’s burden to prove those claims is incredibly high and we will vigorously defend Colorado’s full entitlements under the compact.”

The South Platte River is a critical water source for Front Range cities and Eastern Plains agriculture. The river originates in the Front Range mountains before flowing through Denver and cutting across the northeast portion of the state and into Nebraska.

More than 85% of the state’s population lives in the river basin, and the river irrigates more than 850,000 acres of farmland — the highest concentration of irrigated acres of any river basin in Colorado. The South Platte provides, on average, half of the annual supply for Denver Water, which serves 1.5 million people across metro Denver, according to the utility.

The South Platte River Compact allows Nebraska to use more of the river’s water during the winter, but only if it builds a canal system. Nebraska leaders in 2022 revived long-dormant plans to build the Perkins County Canal, a move that could require them to use eminent domain to obtain land in Colorado.

Farmers in northeastern Colorado say that, if built, the canal would dry up tens of thousands of acres of farmland and threaten the economies of the corner of the state.

Nebraska officials last year surprised Colorado leaders by taking their allegations to the Supreme Court. The two states had been meeting for months to discuss the proposed canal project.

The Supreme Court asked to weigh in on whether it should take the case. In May, the federal office — tasked with representing federal interests at the Supreme Court — argued that the court should decide Nebraska’s claim that Colorado is not sending enough water over the state border, but deny consideration of Nebraska’s other issues.

Controversy over compact-obligated water deliveries between two states is a “quintessential” Supreme Court question, . The solicitor general’s office suggested appointing a special master — a subject-matter expert outside of the nine justices — to handle the issue.

The solicitor general’s brief argues that the Supreme Court should not hear Nebraska’s arguments that Colorado is obstructing its efforts to build the Perkins County Canal because, the office said, Nebraska has not identified any actions by Colorado officials that have substantially interfered in the project. Other potential canal-related problems identified by Nebraska are hypothetical, the solicitor general said, as the state has just begun the permitting process and, therefore, is not ready for Supreme Court consideration.

It’s unclear which issues the Supreme Court will consider as it hears the case. The order Monday allows Nebraska to file its complaint against Colorado.

, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office called Nebraska’s compact violation claims a “hunch.” Weiser previously said he doubted the Supreme Court would take the case.

Colorado’s attorneys now have 30 days to respond to Nebraska’s complaint. Litigation could span years, attorneys for both states have said.

But when legalized sports betting debuted in Colorado in 2020, another tradition took hold at those Lot W tailgates: sports gambling. Now, when the family assembles before the home games, they discuss parlays and point spreads almost as much as they talk about Bo Nix and Sean Payton.

On a warm January day, while partying outside their late-model Winnebago painted with blue-and-orange stripes, they figured out the wagers they planned to put on the Broncos’ final regular-season game, against the , and other NFL matchups.

They weren’t alone. Sports betting and fantasy football dominated conversations throughout the parking lots as tailgaters speculated how much they might win.

The gameday bets — putting a little money on the line — are all part of the fun of football Sundays, said Joe Canales, a family friend who joined the tailgate.

“We all get excited when somebody wins,” he said.

Legalized sports betting is changing the face of sports and fandom in Colorado as people wager billions annually on games and on the athletes who play them. In the six years since voters approved Proposition DD, the state’s gamblers have wagered more than $30.6 billion on sports, averaging $425 million a month.

For years, sports betting was taboo within the professional leagues as commissioners and team owners kept gambling at arm’s length for fear of scandal. Now, leagues and teams promote their partnerships with gambling companies. Fans watching games on TV are inundated with sports-betting ads, and those in the stands can see gambling companies’ names painted on courts and fields.

Bettors often care more about individual athletes’ performances than about their hometown teams as they wager on how many three-point shots a basketball player will make or how many touchdowns a quarterback might throw, multiple people told The Denver Post. Athletes feel the pressure, whether it’s because they receive angry messages on social media from people who lose money or from gamblers seeking an edge from inside information.

Legalized gambling is also threatening the integrity of sports, with fans fearing athletes, coaches and referees may alter calls or plays to influence the outcomes of bets. Just before the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament kicked off, Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, that found a majority of Americans — almost 60% — believe sports betting affects the integrity of college basketball.

“It¶¶Òőap ruining the relationship between a player and their sport, and it¶¶Òőap ruining the relationship between fandom and the athletes,” said Montee Ball, a former Broncos running back who leads the , which focuses on athletes’ mental health.

All of that is forcing coaches and administrators to incorporate gambling and mental health awareness into athletes’ training, with education now starting as early as high school for athletes in Colorado.

In the past six years, sports betting scandals have rocked professional and college leagues, ensnaring Colorado athletes such as hometown basketball legend Chauncey Billups, who was implicated last fall as an unnamed co-conspirator in a rigged NBA betting scheme.

This story, which examines how gambling is changing sports, is the third in The Post’s series about legalized sports betting’s impact on Colorado. The first story looked at an alarming rise in gambling addiction, while the second installment covered how sports wagering’s tax revenue benefits water projects in Colorado.

Sports betting has existed in America as long as athletes have laced up their high-top sneakers. In the past, gamblers sought bookies in secret to place bets, collect winnings and pay debts. Gamblers turned to offshore sportsbooks once the internet became accessible.

Now, sports fans place bets from their phones, often in the middle of games, thanks to a that overturned the , allowing states to set their own laws regulating sports betting. Colorado acted quickly, putting the question to a ballot referendum in November 2019; voters allowed sportsbooks to open for business in May 2020.

And, almost as quickly, Denver’s professional sports teams announced business deals with gambling companies.

An evolving relationship

Just a little more than a decade ago, the was so antagonistic toward sports gambling that the league’s commissioner threatened to suspend Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo over his plans to attend that was being organized by a company he owned.

The NFL prohibited players from participating in any event sponsored by a gambling-related company, and the league so narrowly defined gambling that fantasy football was included, even though those games pit people against each other rather than the house, which keeps the profits.

Players are still not allowed to bet on the NFL, play daily fantasy games or visit sportsbooks during football season. But the league and team owners have embraced sports betting.

Denver’s major sports teams are reluctant to talk about those new business relationships, with every professional team as well as the University of Colorado Boulder and its football coach Deion Sanders declining The Post’s interview requests.

The Broncos and the Colorado Rockies sent prepared statements via email, declaring that they follow the rules while protecting their players and the games’ integrity.

“In compliance with the NFL’s gambling policy, all members of our organization undergo comprehensive training on the subject,” the statement from Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth said. “For players, this includes mandatory in-person education as well as in-season communication and other resources from the team and league.”

The Broncos inked their first business deal with sports-betting app in June 2020 — one month after Colorado’s sportsbooks opened for business.  The team also partnered that summer with , which opened a now-shuttered luxury lounge inside the stadium, and . Today, BetMGM is the team’s lone sports-betting partner.

The Colorado Rockies partner with Denver-based , allowing the company to have a sign on the outfield wall.

also partners with bet365 as a sponsor for the and . That , which allows bet365’s logo to be placed under the Avalanche’s ice and on the Nuggets’ baseline, is in place through the 2028-2029 season.

Courtney Brunious, an assistant professor at the , said he was not surprised Denver’s teams did not want to talk about their business relationships with gambling companies.

“There’s still a certain stigma attached to it,” said Brunious, who teaches sports business. “It’s still — I don’t want to say an uneasy relationship — but it’s an ongoing and evolving partnership. It’s not necessarily something they want to put a spotlight on.”

The gambling companies are eager to associate with professional sports because it puts their names in front of enthusiastic fans, Brunious said. The teams benefit from sports gambling because people who bet money on games are more likely to watch them on television, boosting coveted audience numbers.

The sure thing, Brunious said, is that those relationships will not dissolve. There’s too much money at stake.

“It’s not going away,” he said. “It¶¶Òőap going to require adjustments to make sure all parties are protected as much as possible.”

The sports teams and betting companies are entwined with each other’s success.

Every decision a team makes is analyzed by gamblers and can move a betting line up or down, changing the fortunes of those who wager and those who make money off of it.

When the Los Angeles Rams on June 1 traded for reigning defensive player of the year Myles Garrett, that team became Las Vegas oddsmakers’ favorite to win the next Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the odds for Garrett’s former team, the Cleveland Browns, dropped to 200-to-1 from 115-to-1, according to a news release from Circa Sports.

Peter Jackson, the chief executive officer of , FanDuel’s parent company, explained in a February how “player narratives” impact his company’s revenue. When the NFL’s most popular players are not in the playoffs, the fans bet less money, he said.

“There was one player we had on our books over the course of the year that had more money bet on him in the course of the season than the Pats did,” Jackson said, without naming the player. “This player stuff is super important, and when we don’t have those key players making the playoffs or the Super Bowl, it really does impact player engagement and betting volumes.”

Pressure and harassment

Players are well aware that fans’ interest in their performance is more intense when money is on the line.

They already face performance anxiety because players are super competitive and want to win, said Ball, who played for the Broncos during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Professional athletes also know that an injury or a bad game can cost them playing time and shorten their careers. Now, they also have pressure from fans who want to win money by betting on whether they throw a touchdown pass or catch an interception.

“The athletes can’t escape it,” Ball said. “They shouldn’t have to turn everything off because John is screaming on Twitter, ‘I hope you tear your ACL.’ ”

Athletes in all sports are reporting an increase in harassment since sports betting became legal.

Nuggets guard Bruce Brown brought it up on Oct. 23 in the wake of an NBA sports-betting scandal, telling reporters, “Obviously, after every game, we get DMs about not hitting people’s parlays. There’s been games where I’ve been called every name in the book, just because I didn’t hit a three or two. I mean, that¶¶Òőap just the state of the game we’re in, since sports betting got legal. So I mean, just kind of deal with it. Not think about it. Don’t check your DMs after games.”

Cory Fox, senior vice president of public policy and sustainability at FanDuel, said the company banishes gamblers from its app if they are caught harassing athletes. The other legalized sports books have similar policies.

“First and foremost, we find the harassment of athletes abhorrent,” Fox said.

In June 2025, FanDuel who heckled Gabby Thomas, an Olympic gold medalist in track. The fan, who goes by “Mr100kaday” and describes himself as “The Track and Field Bully,” posted a video of himself hurling insults as Thomas signed autographs and claimed that his heckling caused Thomas to lose the race and allowed him to win a $1,000 parlay bet.

FanDuel is working with sports leagues to develop a process to identify and investigate harassers so they can be banned from the app, Fox said.

“It’s also true there has been an increase in bad behavior,” he said. “This is something we’ve seen globally and it has a lot of factors involved.”

Temptation lurks

There is another dark side to sports gambling — rigged performances.

A major betting scandal rocked the NBA in October when the Terry Rozier, a former Charlotte Hornets point guard, who stands accused of participating in an illegal sports-betting scheme using inside NBA knowledge to defraud sportsbooks and for checking out of a game early to benefit bettors. He has .

And the city of Denver was shocked when Billups, who was then the head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, was linked to the Rozier scandal as an apparent unindicted co-conspirator. Billups was also for allegedly participating in a Mafia-backed illegal poker scheme to defraud unwitting players during card games. He has also pleaded not guilty.

Other sports-betting scandals involving athletes with Colorado ties:

• Denver Broncos defensive lineman Eyioma Uwazurike was suspended for the 2023 season for gambling on NFL games, including five involving the Broncos
• Colorado Rapids midfielder Max Alves was removed from the team in 2023 in the wake of a match-fixing investigation in his home country of Brazil
• Jontay Porter, the brother of former Nuggets starter Michael Porter Jr., was banned from the NBA in 2024 after he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors about his health and limited his participation in one or more games for betting purposes while playing for the Toronto Raptors

Sports betting scandals are almost as old as sports themselves. Think of the Black Sox scandal during the 1919 World Series, when multiple team members conspired with professional gamblers to throw games.

, who played in the NBA for eight years and overseas for three, said gambling is part of the culture for professional athletes.

During his 11 years of pro ball, teammates would bet on anything — trick shots during practice, card games on the road, even which referees would call a playoff game, Funderburke said. It’s the nature of being competitive and confident.

“You’re taught at an early age to bet on yourself,” he said. “You’ve overcome the odds, right? Little League, high school, college, now in the NBA, you’re playing against the best in the world. You always feel like you can overcome the odds. And with athletes, they feel like they can win at just about anything.”

Funderburke, who now works as a financial adviser, speaks out against gambling and tells his clients there are better things to do with their money. He traveled to Colorado in May to encourage lawmakers to pass a bill that would establish guardrails on sports betting in an attempt to curb addiction rates.

“Here’s the problem with the culture,” he said. “Most of the guys that I know — and I won’t say names — who had issues with gambling, not only end up having financial constraints and issues, but their marriages and their families deteriorate at the same time, which I think is much worse than any type of financial problems.”

The professional leagues and universities know the temptation is there and they are working to combat it.

But they are not always successful.

The controversy surrounding Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby serves as the latest example.

‘A source of heartburn’

Days before the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, sent a warning to all of its athletes: Sports betting is against the rules.

“It is still to a large degree one of the worst violations you can have,” said , CSU’s associate athletic director for compliance. “With sports wagering, the door pretty much gets shut down. Like a positive drug test too many times, your eligibility is just shot.”

However, the Sorsby case upended that policy for college football.

Sorsby made thousands of impermissible bets worth at least $90,000 on college and pro sports, including some on his team when he was a freshman at the University of Indiana. The NCAA suspended Sorsby after he was caught and admitted to gambling, but he sued in an attempt to play his senior season.

A Texas judge ruled June 8 through a temporary injunction that Sorsby should be allowed to play during the upcoming season after serving a two-game suspension. The ruling could overturn NCAA rules, and it propelled college football into uncertainty as to what happens if other student-athletes bet on their own games.

The decision undermined a longstanding NCAA policy that forbids college athletes from gambling on sports and bans them if they’re caught betting on their own teams.

College sports are rapidly changing, with athletes able to earn money from their schools, booster clubs, television commercials and social media feeds. They have more money in their pockets now — in some cases, millions of dollars, Siemer said. The temptation to bet on sports lurks, he said, especially for high-level athletes who believe they know more about their sport than anyone else and can predict wins and losses on sports-betting apps.

“That’s a source of heartburn for us,” he said. “We don’t want to legislate morality, but they have more money now than when they just had a scholarship, and we want them to be smart with it.”

Every student-athlete signs a gambling agreement, acknowledging that they cannot place bets and cannot provide insider information to others, Siemer said.

Each year, CSU brings in experts to talk to students about the risks of gambling and to educate them on the NCAA’s rules that prohibit gambling. The athletics department wants them to understand how important it is that they do not leak tips about injuries or game strategies to others, who might benefit from the inside knowledge, Siemer said.

Last year, a presentation to students revealed just how much money was bet on each sport during a single season, and while Siemer said he could not remember the specifics, he recalled that it was “jaw-dropping.”

While football is the most popular sport for gamblers who bet on CSU sports, other teams also see healthy amounts of wagers, he said.

“I think the presumption is everyone is betting on football,” Siemer said. “Well, it’s not just football. It’s all of the sports. These sports-betting companies will put a line on anything. It doesn’t matter. Women’s tennis. Women’s soccer. The presumption that it’s all on football and basketball should be put to bed.”

Nip it in the bud

Aside from talking to athletes about the pitfalls of gambling, the leagues and teams are turning to professional monitors for help. The NCAA’s major conferences contract with , a company that specializes in sports compliance and integrity.

Matt Heap, a former deputy director, manages IC360’s , a program that monitors betting among athletes at more than 150 universities and more than 25 professional sports leagues.

“That monitors every game, every goal, every pitch,” he said.

Prohibet coordinates with sportsbooks to detect irregular gambling patterns, Heap said. The colleges also provide identifying information — dates of birth, driver’s licenses, phone numbers — on every student-athlete, making it easier to detect prohibited bets. Prohibet also monitors coaches, trainers, administrators and referees to identify irregular betting patterns.

The program can even find crossover bets from different internet addresses that can connect student-athletes to accounts owned by friends and family, he said. Word is spreading among college athletes that they can get caught, he said.

“It nips it in the bud,” Heap said. “The ones that continue to do it and push it are the ones they need to keep an eye on.”

IC360 also works with NCAA athletic departments to educate athletes on the rules surrounding gambling and to warn them about the pitfalls surrounding them. Even telling a friend, family member or classmate about a team member’s injury can sway bets, Heap said.

“Something that seems as innocent or innocuous as that can be the first sign someone is trying to get a hook into a player,” he said. “You guys are targets because someone who wants to manipulate a game outcome has to have a player, a ref or some other game official.”

Those who work with athletes believe education about sports betting must start at a younger age.

Last year, the paired with the to start a gambling awareness program for high school athletes.

CHSAA officials wanted players, parents and coaches to understand the rules and the consequences of violating them, commissioner Mike Krueger said. It’s becoming a national issue at the high school level.

Legal sportsbooks don’t take wagers on high school sports because it is prohibited by state laws, but offshore betting sites accept those wagers, as do emerging prediction markets. People must be 21 to open a legal sports betting account in the U.S., but young people access them through family members and older friends.

“It’s recognizing the reality,” Krueger said. “That’s where we’ve got to have the awareness. While sports betting continues to expand across our society, our responsibility remains unchanged. We look at it as a student well-being issue and not just around rules enforcement.”

READ MORE FROM THIS SPECIAL REPORT: Colorado’s gamble on sports betting

The rusted structure was barely hanging on, and its operation was time-consuming for the busy ranchers, who had to lug special tools on all-terrain vehicles and on foot to open or close the mechanism. But it seemed impossible for the tiny district to find the $6.8 million needed to replace the headgate and the rocky diversion dam that pushed water into the canal.

Then legalized sports betting came along, and, with it, millions of dollars for Colorado water projects. The tiny irrigation district, in Moffat County in the far northwest corner of the state, soon became the poster child for how gambling money is benefiting Colorado’s waterways.

The district received a $750,000 grant from the , which doles out money from sports betting tax revenue, said, sustainable food and water program director for , which helped the district land the grant. That led to a matching grant from the program. With those two grants in hand, other organizations jumped on board, and money poured in, she said.

In 2024, the Maybell Irrigation District installed a new headgate that can be opened or closed via cellphone. If a rancher is cutting hay and doesn’t need to irrigate, he can close the gates to match the amount of water he actually needs at that moment, Lane said. And the diversion structure no longer uses boulders to control the water flow. Instead, it’s a modern structure that is the right height for water control.

The project also benefited four fish species, including the threatened humpback chub, and it made river navigation easier for boaters, helping the region’s outdoor recreation economy.

“That $750,000 was really the ball that got it all rolling, that showed people, ‘Oh, this is going somewhere,'” Lane said of that initial state grant.

Since sports betting became legal in May 2020, the state has collected more than $154 million in taxes, and the Colorado Water Conservation Board has funneled $140 million to various projects that preserve and conserve Colorado’s precious water. Supporters say the gambling money is a godsend for ranchers, fishermen, paddlers and others who want to protect the state’s water and those who depend on it for their livelihoods. Critics, however, say legalized sports betting has come at a cost — fueling an addiction crisis that the state was unprepared for and is underfunding.

This is the second story in The Denver Post’s three-part series exploring the impact of legalized sports betting in Colorado, including the billions spent on wagers, rising addiction rates, and the impact on athletes and the games they play.

Erin Karney Spaur, executive vice president of the , said she reminds her family members and friends who bet on sports that every time they place a wager, they are helping ranchers like those in Maybell access precious water.

“It¶¶Òőap exponentially more than we could ever imagine,” she said of sports betting’s impact on ranches and water. “Coloradans like to gamble on sports, and water is the beneficiary.”

‘That’s our ticket’

In 2015, the Colorado Water Conservation Board — at the behest of then-Gov. John Hickenlooper — released a report on how to best conserve and protect the state’s water.

“It made a lot of plans. It set a bit of policy, and it identified two big funding needs,” said , director of western water for the .

The board determined at the time that Colorado needed $100 million per year for projects to improve river and stream health and restoration, to replace the agricultural industry’s aging irrigation systems and to conserve as much water as possible.

“The 2015 water plan put up that price tag and then continued on its merry way,” he said.

But the money wasn’t there.

A consortium of groups with interests in the state’s waterways — including environmental, agricultural and recreational organizations — began meeting to figure out how to fund the water plan. They considered various tax schemes, such as asking the state to put a levy on bottled water or rental cars. But none of their ideas came with an easy path to voter approval — something necessary to raise statewide taxes in Colorado.

“We sat around a table for over a year and a half trying to figure out how to do this, and there were no good options,” Jackson said.

Then, in 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a ruling that offered the answer to funding water projects in Colorado: . That decision overturned the , paving the way for states to legalize sports betting.

“I said, ‘That’s it. That’s our ticket,’ ” Jackson said.

Jackson thought Colorado voters would be sympathetic to the state’s water crisis, caused by decades of drought and climate change. They also wagered that a tax on sports betting would be easier for voters to digest because it would only be paid by those who chose to gamble; if someone didn’t want to pay the tax, then they didn’t have to participate, he said.

The legislature agreed to put it on the 2019 ballot, and voters approved with 51% in favor. The bill established a 10% tax on sports betting companies’ revenue.

“Water certainly pushed it over,” Jackson said.

Sports betting was slated to open in Colorado on May 1, 2020. But the big date was a false start. The COVID-19 pandemic hobbled betting like a quarterback with a bum knee.

“Sports betting was legal, and there were no sports,” Jackson said. “And I thought to myself, ‘What the hell did we just do?’ ”

Gross sports betting revenue in Colorado was $2.6 million, with 25% of wagers placed on table tennis. Tax revenue was just $96,544.

But that freeze on sports did not last, and the gambling money began flowing as rapidly as Clear Creek during the early summer snowmelt.

The revenue stream

Colorado leaders soon realized sports betting was far more lucrative for tax revenues than had been predicted. In the first six years of legalized sports betting, the has reported record-setting figures each year.

“It¶¶Òőap been hugely successful,” said Drew Peternell, Colorado state director at . “Revenues from sports betting have greatly exceeded any expectations when these mechanisms were put in place.”

By May 2021, when sports betting in Colorado hit its first anniversary, monthly tax revenue hit $635,640 — more than five times what sports wagering had brought in during the same month just a year prior, according to data from the Department of Revenue.

In its most recent report on sports-betting taxes, the department reported it collected $4.4 million in April. The news releases often tout the success of sports betting and the benefits it brings to state waterways. They also include links to , the state’s website for problem gambling resources.

The April tax revenue was 28% more than the amount collected in April 2025, and taxes collected for the current fiscal year through April were at $40.7 million, up 35% over the same period last year.

Thus far, the largest single-month record for tax revenue came in January when the state collected $5 million from $57.8 million in revenue. Coloradans bet $630.2 million, with $119 million wagered on professional football in a month when the Broncos made a run to the conference championship game.

Proposition DD’s 10% tax on net proceeds from sports betting means casinos and companies doing business in Colorado pay the tax after they pay out winning bets and federal taxes.

But the Colorado General Assembly placed a $29 million-a-year cap on sports betting tax revenue when it approved Proposition DD for the statewide ballot. If the state collected more than $29 million each year, the overage was to be refunded to the casinos and licensed gaming companies.

Proposition DD also determined how sports betting proceeds were to be divvied up between programs, with water projects receiving 93% of the tax revenue.

The first projection estimated that sports betting would generate about $16 million annually and that water projects would receive $14.9 million.

Six percent of the tax revenue, or an estimated $960,000, would be set aside in a special fund that would be distributed to Colorado’s three casino cities and other entities that received gaming revenue if they could prove that the new sports betting market caused them to lose money due to decreased bets on traditional gambling and horse racing.

So far, no one has tapped that fund.

Problem gambling would receive just $130,000 annually for establishing a crisis hotline and training for gambling addiction counselors. That amount was increased to $2.5 million annually in 2023.

The Post interviewed seven people whose agencies receive sports betting tax revenue, but only one — Jackson — said they bet on sports themselves. And only one person, who did not want their family’s story to be told publicly, said they sometimes were bothered by the addiction problem because a loved one had died by suicide after gambling away his money.

The tax revenue proved so lucrative that water proponents returned to the legislature to ask for another statewide ballot. This time, which voters approved in 2024, eliminated the $29 million cap, meaning casinos and licensed sports betting companies can no longer receive refunds. And more money will pour into the water conservation fund.

In 2025, water proponents returned to the revenue well again.

This time, they asked the General Assembly to eliminate a clause that had allowed sports betting companies to use their free bet promotions as tax write-offs.

In those promotions, DraftKings, FanDuel and others lure prospective gamblers by offering “free bonus bets” when users apply a promo code advertised on television.

During the NFL’s wild card playoff weekend between Jan. 10 and 12, for example, FanDuel offered a promotion in which bettors would receive $300 when they placed a $5 bet on a game. In the past, FanDuel would have been allowed to write that $300 off as a tax deduction.

But starting in January, that tax deduction was no longer allowed, which means FanDuel and other companies doing business in Colorado pay even more in taxes.

For years, the sports betting companies had argued that losing the tax deduction would force them to pull back on those offers and lead to fewer players, Jackson said. But Colorado watched other states that did not offer similar tax deductions and realized those promotions were still available to gamblers.

“It’s still the primary marketing scheme,” Jackson said. “Colorado was very much an outlier in allowing the deduction.”

Colorado’s water woes

As the planet’s temperature rises, Colorado’s rivers and streams become more threatened by drought.

Last year was for Colorado after the state marked its 10th-warmest year out of 130 years of data, according to the at .  It was the 51st driest year on record, and a swath of northwestern Colorado fell into exceptional drought — the most dire category recorded by the .

And 2026 has brought even hotter and drier weather, with the winter being the warmest on record and snowpack at its lowest levels since records started being kept in 1941.

While drought dries up lakes, rivers and streams, it also impacts almost every person living in Colorado. People live with a shortage of drinking water supplies, irrigation becomes trickier for ranchers, rivers dry up for rafters and fishermen, fish and wildlife struggle, and manufacturers must cope with less water.

Less water also boosts the state’s risk for devastating wildfires and can cause insect infestations or forest diseases to spread.

“Climate change is water change in Colorado, and we need every resource we can to put towards building a more resilient future,” said Lauren Ris, the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s director.

The conservation board intends to help Coloradans address all of those issues with the  through the state’s water plan.

“It primarily focuses on water supply, not water quality,” Ris said.

Projects awarded money during the most recent grant cycle in September included:

• to build a new water storage facility at the Jurgens Reservoir in Weld County that will increase the Lower Latham Reservoir Company’s irrigation supply
• to Adams 12 Five Star Schools to evaluate 54 irrigation systems across 475 acres of irrigated landscape and develop a water conservation plan for the district
• for a Colorado River conservation exhibit at the Confluence Center of Colorado in Mesa County

The water board employs a team of regional grant managers who live and work in the areas they serve. They become familiar with their region’s needs and help decide which projects are worth funding, said Jeannine Shaw, the grants section chief at the water board.

The more organizations applying for a grant together, the more competitive the application becomes, she said. And all of the grants awarded require the applicants to find matching funds, doubling the amount of money available.

And, as more money is spent on sports betting, Colorado can expand its outreach to all four corners of this parched state.

“The difference that makes on the ground is pretty incredible,” Ris said.

In the San Luis Valley, ranchers have long spread water over their grasslands when temperatures start to freeze to create a sheet of ice over the vegetation. As the ice slowly melts during the spring thaw, it seeps into the ground, recharging the water table. It also helps revegetate retired farmland and creates a habitat for wintering birds and wildlife, said Fay Hartman, conservation director for the southwest region of .

In September 2025, American Rivers received a $199,761 grant funded by sports betting to study how the winter ice sheet practice actually benefits the environment. The grant will provide the money for a groundwater study so scientists can collect data by placing groundwater wells at the near Saguache. American Rivers secured $145,956 in matching funds.

There just wasn’t good data on the benefits of creating the winter sheet ice, Shaw said. Different groups wanted to quantify what happens so they would be better informed about the practice and find ways to improve it.

The project, named Frozen Assets, demonstrates the water conservation board’s desire to support innovative ideas for Colorado’s water management, Ris said.

“We’re really able to test some of these theories and use this funding where there is not a whole lot of other opportunity out there to really test some concepts and pilot some things that could have pretty big benefits,” Ris said.

So far, Ris and others who are working to solve Colorado’s water woes believe sports betting revenue is the lifebuoy the state needs to start solving the crisis. It’s not enough, they said, but it’s charting the right course as the state responds to increasing drought, floods and wildfires worsened by climate change.

“We’re thrilled,” she said. “What we really needed was a steady funding stream for water projects, and that¶¶Òőap what this proved to be.”

READ PART 3 NEXT: Sports betting is changing the game for Colorado’s fans and athletes as big money adds new pressures