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.
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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%.
