Colorado Has a Stanley Cup but Not a Monthly Increase in Sports Betting
The Colorado Avalanche did their part in fanning the enthusiasm of Colorado sports bettors, but even the Avs’ successful run to the Stanley Cup title couldn’t keep the state’s overall gambling figures from feeling the effects of the summer sports wagering doldrums.
With the Avalanche advancing to the NHL finals and winning Lord Stanley’s Cup over the two-time champion Tampa Bay Lightning, June wagers on hockey increased by 177% to $29.5 million in June compared to wagers placed in the same month in 2021 of $10.7 million. Operators are reporting a total of $97 million in Stanley Cup Playoff wagers.
Despite all that betting on hockey, Colorado’s total handle for June reflected the typical summertime drop in sports wagering. The state’s June handle was $313.2 million, a decrease of 13% from May ($360.3 million). In a same-month, year-over-year comparison, June 2022 notched a 36.3% increase from June 2021 ($229.76 million).
While Colorado does have sports betting, there are no real money online casinos in the state.
Only Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan, Connecticut and West Virginia have online casinos.
Those states, plus Nevada, offer online poker.
Down Month Also Reflected in GGR, Taxes
Many sports wagering jurisdictions had dramatic drops in revenue in June, and Colorado joined them. The June gross gaming revenue (GGR) for Colorado was about $6.8 million, down 75% from May ($27.12 million) and down 65.6% from June 2021 ($19.7 million).
Correspondingly, the drop in GGR resulted in a hefty drop in taxes. Taxes collected by the state in June 2022 from sports betting was $268,280, an 83.3% decrease over the previous month.
Looking back over the fiscal year that was completed at the end of June 2022, the total wagers for the last fiscal year (July 2021-June 2022) came in at $4.8 billion, a 75.77% increase in the total wagers that were made in the fiscal year 2020-2021 ($2.74 billion).
Fiscal-year taxes to date for June 2022 were $12.44 million, a 53.4% increase from the taxes for the same period in 2020-21 ($8.11 million).
Breakdown by Sports
Among specific sports in June, baseball attracted the most wagering money, $106.48 million, followed by basketball with slightly more than $44 million in wagers.
Ice hockey wagers placed third with $29.54 million. Tennis attracted $23.44 million and soccer had $10.29 million in wagers.
Contributors
A longtime reporter and editor who began writing on casinos and gaming shortly after Atlantic City’s first gambling halls opened, Bill covered the world Series of Poker and wrote a syndicated column on travel to casino destinations for a decade.
