Colorado's Department of Revenue announced that the state's sportsbooks accepted $554.8 million in bets for October, a roughly 8% monthly jump from the $512.7 million in September. Compared to 2022, this year saw modest growth with a 5.3% increase.
Bettors saw a bit more luck in October as the operators held 8.4% of the wagers they accepted, slightly less than the 8.8% registered in both September and August. A slight drop in hold wasn’t enough to decrease Colorado’s tax bill. The Centennial State hauled in $3.3 million from operators, a 7% increase. Compared to October 2022, the state saw a nearly 44% jump.
Retail books struggle to make a profit
The good news for Colorado’s tax bill was that a vast majority of bets were placed online, otherwise revenue would have been a mess. That’s because the retail sportsbooks overall failed to make money.
From the $4.4 million in bets received, the brick-and-mortar locations paid $4.5 million back to bettors, a net loss of roughly $100,000. Specifically those books lost money on football, baseball, tennis, table tennis, golf, and MMA. Luckily, they won $130,000 from parlays, which were more than 20% of all bets they saw. The online sportsbooks won on every sport except for golf.
More football, please
With football in full swing, Colorado bettors continued to put their money on America’s favorite sport.
Professional football saw 33.4% of all Colorado sports betting wagers, up from 30.7% in September. College football came in third with 9.3%, down from September’s 13.6% (which is when the University of Colorado started losing games). Basketball was the second most popular sport at 11.4%.
